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THE 



REAL BLASPHEMERS. 



BY 









JOHN R. KELSO, A.M. 



n 



ex. 




D. M. BENNETT, 
LIBERAL AND SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING HOUSE 

OFFICE OF THE TRUTH SEEKER, 
NEW YORK. 



, 3, 



I* 



11 



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> M« 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 



LECTURE FIRST. 

On the part of the priesthood, and of churchmen 
generally, it has always been a favorite habit to charge 
Infidels and other advocates of Freethought, espe- 
cially those who have advanced the most utterly 
unanswerable arguments, with being blasphemers. I 
propose, however, in this short course of lectures, to 
demonstrate that this charge is entirely without foun- 
dation. I propose to demonstrate further that the 
very parties who prefer this charge are themselves the 
real blasphemers. 

According to Webster and other standard lexicog- 
raphers, blasphemy consists in any ^indignity offered 
to God in words either spoken or written, in attribut- 
ing to him anything that is contrary to his nature, in 
charging him with doing anything that he never does, 
and especially anything that would derogate from his 
glory if he should do. In short, our highest authori- 
ties on the subject make anything blasphemy, if 
spoken or written against God, that would constitute 
slander, if spoken or written against an innocent man. 
From this definition, it is clear that if there be no 



6 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

such person as God there cannot really be any such 
crime as blasphemy. It is also clear that since a crime 
of any kind consists in the intent and not in the act 
itself, and since no one can intend any indignity to. 
Avard a person that he does not believe has any exist, 
ence, it is clear, I repeat, that in view of these things. 
a thorough Infidel cannot be guilty of the offense of 
blasphemy. Since he does not intend any indignity 
to any intelligent being, his words, no matter what 
they ma^y be, cannot constitute blasphemy, when used 
concerning Jehovah, any more than when used con- 
cerning Joss, Juggernaut, etc., or even concerning the 
apes, serpents, onions, stones, and other lesser gods of 
other nations. It is evident, therefore, that the real 
blasphemers must be looked for among the real be- 
lievers in some god; and since, in this country, the 
only real god-believers are those who worship the God 
of the Bible, it is evident that among these are to be 
found all of our real blasphemers. In order, then, to 
discuss the question before us, we must first assume 
that there actually is such a person, power, or intelli- 
gence as God, and that he possesses certain attributes 
which distinguish him from all other persons, powers, 
or intelligences. Instead, however, of taking the 
trouble ourselves to assume a God. and to endow him 
with attributes of our own invention, we propose in 
this discussion to simply take up, as we now find him, 
the God that the champions of the Bible have already 
assumed, and that they have already endowed witli 
various attributes all entirely of their own invention. 
As we now find him, this God is a pure spirit, infi- 
nite In the extent of his presence, infinite in his knowh 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 7 

edge, infinite in his power, infinite in his goodness; in 
short, infinite in all his attributes, all of which are 
good and good only. Who first assumed the existence 
of this God, and upon what grounds they made this 
assumption, we will not now stop to consider ; neither 
will we now stop to consider who first endowed him 
with his present attributes, and the grounds upon 
which these endowments were made. Taking him as 
we now find him, already endowed with all the infinite 
attributes in question, and assumed to be the only true 
God — the maker and sustainer of all things — I pro- 
pose to prove that all the champions of the Bible are 
real blasphemers, because they attribute to him many 
personal qualites that are contrary to his nature, as 
here found, and because they charge him with doing 
many things which he does not do, and which would 
greatly derogate from his glory if he should do. 

Before proceeding, however, to adduce the promised 
proofs, I wish to say, once for all, that in charging all 
the champions of the Bible with being blasphemers, I 
do not mean any personal disrespect or unkindness to 
any individual, and especially to any individual now 
present, who may regard the contents of the Bible as 
all absolutely true, and as being indeed the inspired 
word of God. As a public teacher, as a minister of 
the gospel of truth, of reason, science, and common 
sense, I hold it to be my duty to attack any man's 
and every man's errors, whenever and wherever I may 
discover them, and this duty I will faithfully and 
fearlessly perform. I will not, however, attack any 
man himself, no matter into how many errors he may 
have fallen. On the other hand, if I hav fallen into 



8 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

any errors, I invite attack upon those errors, fori want 
to know them and to abandon them. I claim, how. 
ever, a right to exemption from the personal attacks, 
the personal proscriptions and persecutions which, be- 
cause of the expression of my honest convictions, be- 
cause of the unanswerable arguments that I have ad- 
vanced, I have long borne at the hands of those who 
claim to be true believers in the inspiration of the 
Bible, and faithful followers of the meek and lowly 
Jesus. Persecutions can never convince me that I am 
in the wrong, or that my persecutors are in the right. 
Quit persecuting me, therefore, quit proscribing me in 
my profession, quit calling me by ugly names. You 
have long tried all of these things in vain. By them 
you have succeeded only in driving me farther from 
you, farther into what you regard as an erroneous 
way. Would it not, then, be better to try upon me 
the effect of kind and just treatment ; to point out to 
me the fatal errors into which you hold that I have 
fallen? As I proceed, do not ask yourselves whether 
my teachings do or do not tend to overthrow the 
creeds which, before you were old enough to reason, 
were instilled into your minds, but ask yourselves 
whether I do or do not fully and fairly prove the truth 
of all that I teach. If I do not give this proof, please 
point out wherein I fail to give it If, on the con. 
trary, I do give it, if I do fully and fairly demonstrate 
the truth of my teachings and the error of your>, 
have I not done you a great good ? Is not the truth 
which I give you worth far more than is the error 
which I take from you? And should you persecute 
me for thus doing you a great good ? 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 9 

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was 
light. And God saw the light, that it was good : and 
God divided the light from the darkness. And God 
called the light day, and the darkness he called night : 
and the evening and the morning were the first day " 
(Gen. i, 3-5). "Thou hast prepared the light and the 
sun" (Ps. lxxiv, 16). "While the sun, or the light 
or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the 
clouds return after the rain" (Eccl. xii, 2). "I form 
the light and create darkness" (Is. xlv, 7). 

In all of these passages, and in a vast number of 
other similar passages, God is represented as believing 
that light was a substance, or body, entirely independ- 
ent of, and distinct from, the sun, the moon, the stars, 
or any other source of light; as believing that it was 
something that he had formed or given shape to ; as 
believing that it was something that was capable of 
existing either commingled with, or "divided from," 
darkness, which he believed to be another similar sub- 
stance or body of a different color; as believing that 
it was something that was capable of being "dark- 
ened " without being destroyed. He is represented as 
believing that day could and did exist, with its even- 
ing and morning, before there was any sun to produce 
day. He is represented as believing that darkness 
was something that he had created — as something that 
had once been utterly absent from the universe, and 
at the same time, too, that light was also absent. He 
is also represented as declaring that he himself had 
made all these things just as they are here described. 

We now know, however, that all the views which 
he is here represented as entertaining concerning these 



10 THE SEAL BLASrHEMKRS. 

things are erroneous. We now know tbat light is 
simply a property of, or an emanation from, some 
luminous body, and that it is not itself a body that 
can exist independent of any other body, or that could 
continue to exist, as the sun could, without any change 
in its shape or its material, after it had been entirely 
"darkened." We now know that darkness is simply 
the absence of light, and that it is not a substance or 
body that ever could have been, or ever was, created. 
We now know that light and its own absence could 
not both have been ever, at the same time, wanting in 
the universe; that so long as light was not present 
anywhere in the universe, its absence, darkness, must, 
of absolute necessity, have been everywhere present. 
We now know that light never could have been, and 
hence never was, so commingled with its own absence, 
darkness, that the two had to be "divided "or sep- 
arated from each other. We now know that day 
never could have existed, and hence never did exist, 
before there was any sun to produce day. We now 
know that no effect can exist before its cause. And, 
knowing all these things, we cannot help knowing, 
too, that God never could have made, and hence never 
did make, all of these things, or any of them, as they 
are represented in the passages above quoted. In con- 
tending, therefore, as they do, that these passages are 
the inspired word of God, the champions of the Bible 
represent him as a 1 very ignorant person, as entertain- 
ing false notions concerning all these things. They 
also represent him as a very untruthful person, as as- 
serting that he himself had made all these things just 
as they are here described, when, in fact, he had never 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 1 L 

made them at all. In doing this they give a repre- 
sentation of him which is entirely contrary to the na- 
ture of his attributes of infinite knowledge and infinite 
truthfulness. This representation, being very derog- 
atory to God's character, undeniably constitutes bias 
phemv, and those who give it are undeniably real 
blasphemers 

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the 
midst of the waters: and let it divide the waters from 
the waters. And God made the firmament, and 
divided the waters which were under the firmament 
from the waters which were above the firmement: and 
it was so. And God called the firmament heaven*" 
(Gen. i, 6-8). In contending that these passages are 
the inspired word of God, the champions of the Bible 
blasphemously represent him as asserting things which 
we now know to be utterly false; as asserting that he 
had made and placed directly over the earth a "firma- 
ment," or solid structure, and had placed on the upper 
side of it a large portion of the waters of the universe. 
The word firmament is simply an anglicized form of 
the Latin firmament um, which means a solid founda- 
tion or support — something designed to render firm or 
stable whatever might be placed upon it. The word 
is used as the translation of the Hebrew " rakia," which, 
in addition to the idea of firmness or solidity always 
involved in the term, also always involves the idea of 
thinness or flatness, as of sheet metal, produced by 
hammering or beating. The corresponding English 
terms are "the sky, the heaven," etc. The term 
heaven, as you doubtless all know, is simply an old 
and now obsolete form of the past tense of the verb 



12 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS 

heave, to lift up, to bulge, etc., the word having for- 
merly been written with a final en instead of a final ed, 
as at present The meaning of the word then was 
and still is the heave-en, that is, the thing heaved or 
bulged up — the sky, which was formerly believed to 
be a solid structure, and which does seem to be heaved 
up, like an inverted bowl over the earth, just as the 
crystal of a watch is heaved or bulged up from the 
face of the watch. The earth over which this " firma- 
ment " or solid sky was thus heav-en (heaved) or 
bulged up, was once universally believed to be flat 
and stationary, and every reference made to it in the 
Bible involves these ideas. On the upper side of the 
"firmament" were believed to be vast bodies of water, 
placed there at the time of the creation. This idea of 
the "firmament," or solid concavo-convex heaven, is 
more clearly expressed in the following passage : " Hast 
thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, 
and as a molten looking-glass " (Job xxxvii, 18). We 
now know, however, that there is not and that there 
never was any such solid sky or "firmament" stand- 
ing thus over a flat and stationary earth, and support- 
ing vast bodies of water. In representing God, then, 
as entertaining so many erroneous opinions, and as 
making so many false assertions concerning these things, 
are not my opponents all guilty of blasphemy ? 

"In the six hundredth year of iSToah's life, in the 
second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the 
same day were all the fountains of the great deep 
broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 
. . . And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon 
the earth : and all the high hills that were under the 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 13 

whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward 
did the waters prevail : and the mountains were cov- 
ered" (Gen. vii, 11, 19, 20). "The fountains also of 
the deep, and the windows of heaven were stopped, 
and the rain from heaven [not from the clouds, the 
waters had risen several miles above, where rain-clouds 
exist] was restrained " (Gen. viii, 2). My opponents 
represent God as here asserting that, through " foun- 
tains of the great deep" — a "great deep" which we 
now know never could have existed, and which, con- 
sequently, never did exist beneath the earth's surface, 
and through "windows of heaven," holes in a firma- 
ment or solid sky, which we now know never could 
have rested, and which, consequently, never did rest 
above the earth — water enough was procured to pro- 
duce a general deluge, to cover the tops of the high- 
est mountains, to form a solid body of water over five 
miles deep over the face of the whole earth. In 
representing him as making these assertions so utterly 
false and absurd, do they not defame his character for 
knowledge and veracity? And are they not, then, 
guilty of blasphemy? 

" And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament 
[or solid substance] of the heaven [or heaved-up thing], 
to divide [not to produce day, which already existed, 
without anything to produce it] the day from the 
night [previous to this time day and night seem to have 
been sadly intermingled with each other]. 
And God made too great lights: the greater light to 
rule the day [to rule it how?], and the lesser light [the 
moon is not any more a light than is the earth] to rule 
the night; he made the stare also. And God set them 



14 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

[.-tuck them like nails] in the firmament of the heaven 
to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day, 
and over the night, and to divide the light [which 
already existed without any luminous body in the 
universe] from the darkness. . . . And the even- 
ing and the morning were the fourth day " (Gen. i r 14, 
16-19). Here God is represented as asserting that he 
had made the sun, the moon, avid the stars as mere ad- 
juncts to the earth, and that he had made them all 
three days after the making of the earth. We now 
know, however, that this assertion is false, that the 
earth never could have existed, and hence never did 
exist, and enjoy day and night, before there was any 
sun to produce either the earth herself or her day, and 
before there were any other bodies in the universe. 
He is also represented as falsely and absurdly assert- 
ing that the sun was made not to produce day, which 
already existed, without anything to produce it, but 
to "divide'' the already existing day from the already 
existing night; "to divide the light," which already 
existed without anything to produce it, "from the 
darkness," from its own absence, with which it seems 
to have previously been commingled. He is still 
further represented as falsely and foolishly asserting 
that he made the sun, the moon, and the stars all at 
one job, and in far less time than he had spent in the 
making of the earth alone. He is final ly represented 
as asserting that to keep them from falling he had 
"set" or stuck all these bodies, like so many nails, all 
at an equal distance from the earth, into the solid sub- 
stance of the "firmament," and hence, of necessity, a 
little lower or nearer the earth than were the "waters 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. lu 

which were above the firmament." In representing 
God as making such assertions as these, are not my 
opponents undeniably guilty of blasphemy? 

" And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even 
as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is 
shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven [the solid 
sky into which the stars had been "set"] departed as 
a scroll when it is rolled together" (Rev. vi, 13, 14). 
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the 
night: in the which the heavens shall pass away with 
a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein, 
shall be burned up. . . . Looking for and hasting 
unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the 
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the ele- 
ments shall melt with fervent heat" (2 Pet. iii, 10, 12). 
Here God is represented as still believing, after a lapse 
of some 4,000 years, during which he should have 
learned better, that the sky or heaven was a solid sub- 
stance which was capable of being " rolled together" 
like a "scroll," and taken away, which was capable of 
producing a "great noise" when it was moved, and 
which was capable of being "melted" or "dissolved" 
by a great heat. He is also represented as being so 
ignorant that he believed the stars to be small objects 
set as mere ornaments in the firmament, and capable 
of being shaken out of it, and made to come rattling- 
down like so many figs upon the earth. And can any 
but blasphemers make, concerning God, representa- 
tions so derogatory to his character for infinite knowl- 
edge? 

"For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he 



16 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

hath set the world upon them " (1 Sam. ii, 9). " Where 
wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 
. . . Who hath laid the measure thereof, if thou 
knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it? 
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or 
who laid the corner-stone thereof " (Job xxxviii, 4-6)? 
"Who laid the foundations of the earth that it should 
not be removed forever " (Ps. civ, 5) ? " Which shaketh 
the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof trem- 
ble " (Job ix, 6). " Mine hand also hath laid the founda- 
tions of the earth" (Is. xlviii, 13). "The earth and 
all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved ; I bear up 
the pillars of it" (Ps. lxxv, 3.) " Hear ye, moun- 
tains, the Lord's controversy, and ye stronsr founda- 
tions of the earth " (Mic. vi, 2). " For the windows 
from on high are open and the foundations of the 
earth do shake. The earth shall reel to and fro like 
a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage " 
(Is. xxiv, 18-20). " The world also is established that 
it cannot be moved" (Ps. xciii, 1). "And the chan- 
nels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world 
were discovered " (2 Sam. xxii, 10). " Which . . 
layeth the foundations of the earth " (Zech. xii, 1) 
"And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foun- 
dations of the earth " (Ileb. i, 10). "For the earth is 
the Lord's ... he hath founded it upon the sens, 
and established it upon the floods" (Ps. xxiv, 1, 2). 
' : To him that stretched out the earth above the 
waters" (Ps. cxxxvi, 6). 

In all of these passages, and in a vast number of 
others that might be given, the earth is clear'y repre- 
sented as a stationary body, firmly fixed upon pillars, 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 17 

spread out like a floating island upon the waters of the 
"great deep/' or resting upon some other material 
foundation. Indeed, there is not in the entire Bible a 
single passage which, |ven remotely, involves the idea 
of a globular earth, revolving in space. That the 
writers of the Bible regarded the earth as a flat as well 
as a stationary body is made still more clear by the 
following passages: " Thus saith God the Lord . . 
he that spread forth the earth " (Is. xlii, 5). Is a 
globular earth a thing that is thus " spread forth ? " 
" I am the Lord . . . that spreadeth abroad the 
earth by myself " (Is. xliv, 24). Could any other than 
a flat earth be thus " spread abroad ? " u And thou, 
Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of 
the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine 
bands. They shall perish ; . . . and as a vesture 
shalt thou fold them up " (Heb. i, 10-12). Could any 
other than a flat earth be thus, like a " vesture," 
folded up? And could any other heaven than one 
material and flat, like sheet metal, be thus also folded 
up like a '■ vesture?" In contending that all of these 
passages are the inspired word of God, do not my 
opponents represent God as ignorantly believing that 
the earth was thus flat and stationary, and the heaven 
or sky as thus consisting of a solid substance, like 
sheet metal ? Do they not also represent him as men- 
daciously declaring that he himself had made the 
earth thus flat and stationary, and the sky thus a solid 
substance ? And does not the act of making repre- 
sentations of God so derogatory to his character con- 
stitute my opponents blasphemers? 

In the following passages the earth is represented 



18 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

as the principal body in the universe; as being T indeed, 
itself the entire universe, all the other bodies being 
simply its complements or ornaments. It is repre- 
sented as affording a plenty of room on its surface for 
all the heavenly bodies and all the heavenly devils to 
fall upon, and as being so spread out under these heav- 
enly bodies and heavenly devils that they all do inev- 
itably strike it whenever they do fall. " How art thou 
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning" (Is. 
xiv, 12). " And all the hosts of heaven shall be dis- 
solved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a 
scroll ; and all their hosts shall fall down as the leaf 
falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the 
fig-tree" (Is. xxxiv, 4). The " heavens" mentioned 
here is evidently nothing more nor less than the plural 
of heaven, which, as we have already seen, was the 
firmament or solid sky which, on the second day of 
creation, God placed, like a vast inverted bowl, over 
the earth as a support for the vast bodies of water 
which he stored up above the earth, and for the stars 
and the other heavenly bodies which he set into it 
These heavenly bodies, the "hosts of heaven," are here 
represented as being shaken out of their settings in the 
firmament, and made to come rattling down, like 
so many figs upon the earth. We know, however, that 
this representation is false, since the stars, so far from 
being small bodies like figs, as they were formerly 
supposed to be, are now known to be themselves vast 
worlds, many of them millions of times larger than 
the earth upon which they are thus represented as 
falling. The firmament or "heavens," from which the 
"hosts" of heavenlv bodies have been shaken, is also 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 19 

represented here as being " rolled together as a scroll, " 
and this could not be done to anything but a material 
body, thin and flat like sheet metal. We now know, how- 
ever, that this representation is also false, since there 
never was any such material " heavens" or solid sky to 
be thus "rolled together/' The following passage is 
also equally false: fi And there was war in heaven ; 
Michael and his angels fought, against the dragon, 
and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed 
not; neither was their place found any more in 
heaven. And the g-eat dragon was cast out, . . 
he was cast out into the earth; and his angels 
were cast out with him" (Rev. xii, 7-9). To say 
nothing about the devils of heaven, do my opponents 
really believe that all the stars of neaven ever did or 
ever will come rattling down thus, like so many figs 
upon the earth? If they do not themselves believe it, 
are they not guilty of willful blasphemy when they 
thus represent God as the author of these and a thou- 
sand other passages equally absurd and false? Can 
they, without blasphemy, represent him thus as more 
ignorant than themselves? Can they, without blas- 
phemy, represent him as believing and teaching doc- 
trines which their own intelligence renders themselves 
incapable of believing, and which their own self-respect, 
if not their sense of honor, prevents themselves from 
ever teaching on their own responsibility ? 

In the following passages the firmament or heaven — 
the solid sky, which we now know never did exist — 
is represented as having solid foundations, resting, like 
the edge or rim of an inverted bowl, upon the earth. 
or in the waters, upon which the earth is represented 



20 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

as being, like a great floating island, ''stretched out/' 
'"The pillars of heaven tremble" (Job xxvi, 11). "The 
foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he 
was wroth" (2 Sam. xxii, 8). " Thus saith the Lord, 
The heaven is my throne and the earth is my foot- 
stool " (Is. Ixvi, 1). " It is he that sitteth upon the 
circle of the earth, . . . that stretcheth out the 
heavens [not as mere boundless space, as many of my 
opponents would fain have us believe, but as some- 
thing material] as a curtain, and spreadeth them out 
as a tent to dwell in" (Is. xl, 22). "Who . . stretch- 
est out the heavens like a curtain. Who layeth the 
beams of his chambers in the waters. He watereth 
the hills from his chambers (Ps. civ, 2, 3, 13). As 
here described, the "heavens," spread out "as a cur- 
tain," or " as a tent to dwell in," corresponds exactly 
with what we call the sky, as it appears to our unaided 
vision, and evidently means nothing else. We now 
know, however, that the sky — the "heavens " in ques- 
tion — is nothing more than the color of the atmos- 
phere which surrounds us, and through which we look 
outward from the earth in all directions into bound- 
less space. Since God was supposed to sit upon the 
"heavens" or sky, and since the "heavens" or sky. 
thus used by him for a seat or "throne," was supposed 
to rest with its circular edge, like the edge of an in- 
verted bowl, upon the surface of the earth, the author 
very consistently speaks of him as sitting " upon the 
circle of the earth." This " circle of the earth" can be 
nothing else than the visible horizon — the circle 
formed by God's seat, the sky, where it seems to rest 
upon the earth. That portion of the circular edge of 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 21 

the sky or " heavens/' which extended out beyond 
the J and into the water, was supposed to rest upon 
beams or upon something else more substantial than 
water. With this prevailing idea in his mind, there- 
fore, the author very consistently speaks of God as 
laving "the beams of his chambers in the waters;" 
and, in view of the then prevailing belief that there 
were vast bodies of water "above the firmament " — 
right in God's u chambers," placed for the benefit of 
trie earth — he also speaks very consistently when he 
sa\ r s of God, u He watereth the hills from his cham- 
bers." When w r e consider the true standpoint of be- 
lief occupied by the author while writing the above 
passages their meaning becomes very plain and very 
consistent. When considered from any other possi- 
ble standpoint, they have no meaning, no consistency 
at all. But do my opponents occupy the same stand- 
point that was occupied by the author of these pas- 
sages? Do they really believe that there is, or that 
there ever was, any such heaven or solid sky — any 
such vast inverted bowl, resting with its circular edge 
upon the earth, thus forming what the author calls 
"the circle of the earth," or upon beams laid in the 
waters? If not, if they are themselves too intelli- 
gent to believe this long since exploded doctrine, 
how dare they thus blasphemously charge God with 
being ignorant enough to believe it? 

By contending that the Bible is his inspired word, 
my opponents have thus far constant^ represented 
God as a very ignorant person — as entertaining all the 
erroneous opinions that prevailed among the barba- 
rous people of the dark ages in which the Bible was 



22 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

written. They have constantly represented him 
merely as a fair exponent, reflection, or specimen of 
the people of those countries and of those times in 
which the writers of the Bible lived. They Lave con- 
stantly represented him as exhibiting, in regard to all 
scientific matters, a degree of ignorance that would at 
the present time be a disgrace to a school-boy of fif- 
teen years. They have constantly represented him as 
ostentatiously and mendaciously declaring that he 
had himself done many things which we now know 
that he never could have done, and which, conse- 
quently, he never did do ; things, too, which it would 
have been a great disgrace to him if he ever had done. 
Have I not, then, made out against them several clear 
cases of blasphemy ? 

ki And they heard the voice of the Lord God walk- 
ing [Which was walking, the voice or the Lord God?] 
in the garden in the cool of the day ; and Adam and 
his wife hid themselves from the presence of the 'Lord 
God among the trees of the garden. And the Lord 
God called unto Adam, and said unto him. Where art 
thou ? " (Gen. iii, 8. 9). This is a plain historical 
statement, in which figurative language would be en- 
tirely inadmissible. The entire statement, therefore, 
is bound to be either literally true or literally false. 
If it be literally true — and my opponents will hardly 
contend that it is literally false — then, since God had 
a voice audible to the natural or physical sense of 
hearing, he must, of necessity, have possessed natural 
or physical organs of speech. Since he was walking 
(it could hardly have been the voice alone that was 
walking), he must, of necessity, have possessed feet 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 23 

and legs to walk with, and a body to support those or- 
gans. In short, we have him here, like a man, pos- 
sessed of a complete material body. And since, for 
his walk, he purposely chose "the cool of the day," it 
is evident that he wished to avoid the heat of the day 
as too oppressive. In this matter, then, he clearly ex- 
hibited a human, or, at least, a physical weakness. 
Since lie was walking about inside of the garden, he 
must, of necessity, have been less in size than was the 
garden. Since Adam alone was expected to dress this 
entire garden and keep it in order, it could not have 
been a very large one; and since, even inside of this 
small garden, there was room enough not occupied by 
God for Adam and his wife to hide themselves in from 
his u presence," he could not have been much larger than 
a man, certainly not larger than one of the giants de- 
scribed by Sin Bad the Sailor. He and Sin Bad's giants 
doubtless all belonged to the same order of beings. 
All that portion of the universe, then, not occupied 
by this his comparatively small body, was destitute of 
God's presence. He was certainly not omnipresent. 
In the extent of his presence, he was certainly a finite 
being, as much so as am I myself; and he never 
changes, and since no finite thing can ever possibly 
become infinite, he is bound to be a finite being to- 
day if he has any existence at all. Such a being, how- 
ever, traveling during all the ages of eternity, with a 
million times the speed of light, could never reach the 
boundary of the infinite universe, even in one single 
direction. Much less could he ever, and especially in 
" six days," have passed throughout all portions of it to 
create the infinitude of mighty worlds and systems of 



2-i THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

worlds contained therein. By contending, therefore, 
that this incredible story is his inspired word, and that 
it is absolutely true, my opponents undeniably make 
God a total failure. They entirely ungod him. Ar<# 
they not, then, guilty of blasphemy? 

Besides all this, since "Adam and his wife hid 
themselves from the presence of the Lord God," and 
since, in order to find them, he was under the neces- 
sity of calling to them, he must, of necessity, have been 
ignorant of the place of their concealment, as well as 
absent from that place. Had he been present where 
they then were, they would not have been hidden 
" from " his " presence ;" and had he known where they 
were, they would not have been hidden from him at 
all. It is not said that they tried to hide from him, 
but that they actually did hide. Here, then, my oppo- 
nents blasphemously make God finite in the extent of 
his knowledge as well as in the extent of his presnce. 

In Ex. xxxi, 17, we read: "For in six days the 
Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day 
he rested and was refreshed.'' Had he not been weary, 
he could not possibly have thus u rested " and been 
"refreshed.*' Here, then, if this be the inspired word 
of God, we again have proof positive that, like men 
and other animals, he was once subject to a physical 
want or infirmity, weariness; and that, like men and 
other animals, he required physical rest and refresh- 
ment. And dare nw opponents contend that a person 
thus possessed of a material body, thus subject to 
physical infirmities, thus liable to be worn out and de- 
stroyed, thus limited in his presence, his knowledge, 
and his power, can be and is the infinite being or 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 25 

power that rules the infinite universe? If not, if by 
contending that these descriptions of him are given by 
inspiration from himself, they degrade God and render 
him, in any respect, inferior to the infinite power in 
question, do they not ungocl him entirely? And can 
they do this without being real blasphemers? 

"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and 
took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and 
offered bu'rnt-offerings on the altar. And the Lord 
smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, 
I will not again curse the ground any more for man's 
sake " (Gen. viii, 20. 21). From the fact that God said 
certain things in his '•heart," we learn that he cer- 
certainly had a "heart, 1 ' and that he certainly must 
have had a body to contain the " heart." From 
the fact that he " smelled a sweet savor'' — the ma- 
terial odors of roast meats — we learn that he cer- 
tainly had a nose, which was acted upon by the same 
agencies that act upon the noses of men and the lower 
animals, and that he certainly must have had a bodv 
to sustain the nose. From the fact that he was pleased 
and rendered more gracious by the smell of the " sweet 
savor" in question — by the smell of that which con- 
stituted his food — we learn that in his nature, his ap- 
petites, his passions, etc., he was just like men and the 
lower animals, that are always more kindly disposed 
after a "good square meal " than they are when raven- 
ous from hunger. Indeed, the Bible everywhere 
teaches that the design, and the only design, of the 
roast meats formerly offered to God was, by sending 
up to his place of abode a "sweet savor," to gratify 
his sense of smell, and to thus put him into a sum- 



26 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

ciently good humor to pardon the sins of the people, 
and to do their bidding generally. In other words, by 
means of their roast meats, of which they supposed he 
was exceedingly fond, they then bribed or bamboozled 
him into serving them, just as we now, by means of 
our extravagant "blarney," of which we suppose him 
to be exceedingly fond, bribe or bamboozle him into 
serving us. 

In the thirty-second chapter of Genesis we learn 
that God, in a material body like that of a man, had a 
" rough-and-tumble " wrestling match with Jacob, who, 
notwithstanding the fact that he was then over a hun- 
dred years of age, was more than a match for this ma- 
terialized God. From this, again, we learn that God 
had a body, and a very weak one at that. From the 
fact that he did not know who Jacob was until he had 
inquired and Jacob had told him, we learn that, in in- 
telligence, he was not superior to a man; and from 
the fact that after his defeat he wished to go away 
from Jacob, we learn that, at that time, he was not 
away from Jacob ; that is, we learn that he was not 
then present in any ether part of the universe. How, 
then, did the universe get on without him, while he 
was thus absent from it tussling with Jacob? Was 
not such tussling with a man a very undignified amuse- 
ment for a God to engage in? Do not my opponents 
slander God when they thus represent him as engaging 
in this low kind of sport? Are they not, then, real 
blasphemers? 

"I will go down now and see whether thev have 
done altogether according to the cry of it, which is 
come unto me: and if not, I will know " (Gen. xviii, 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 27 

21). Here, again, God is represented as being very 
limited both, in his power and his presence as well as 
in his knowledge. From the fact that he had to "go 
down" to Sodom, in order to "see" what the Sodom- 
ites were doing, we learn that he could not "see" 
those things from where he then was. From the fact 
that in order to be at Sodom he first had to " go down " 
thither, we learn that he was not yet at Sodom ; that 
he was not omnipresent. From the fact that he did 
not yet know what the Sodomites were doing, and 
could not know this until he reached their city, we 
learn that he was neither omniscient nor omnipotent. 
Indeed, this story robs him of all the attributes that 
render him a deity at all — of all the attributes that 
render him superior to man. Since a man could have 
done all that he is here represented as doing, this rep- 
resentation of him certainly degrades him to the level 
of a man. Indeed, in the preceding portion of ibis 
same chapter, he is represented as having a body so 
exactly like the body of a man that he was mistaken 
for a man. He is represented as having walked and 
talked exactly like a man; as having grown weary 
like a man; as having rested in the shade of a tree 
like a man; as having had dirty feet like a mar. ; as 
having washed his feet like a man; as having been 
hungry like a man; as having eaten heartily of bread, 
meat, and milk like a man ; as having been, in short, 
in every respect, like a man. In what respect, then, 
was he not a man? In what respect was he superior 
to a man? What was the nature of his body? Was 
it, like the body of a man, composed of flesh, blood, 
bones, and other forms of matter? If not. cf what 



28 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

was it composed, and how was it capable of containing 
and digesting the material food which he then ate? 
What became of that food ? Did it undergo the same 
processes in his body that it would have undergone 
had it been eaten by a man? If not, then, when he 
changed himself back into an invisible spirit — if, in- 
deed, he did undergo any such change — did that food 
all drop down from his evanished stomach, in a mass, 
upon the ground, just as he had eaten it, and thus go 
to waste ; or was it, also, like himself, changed into in- 
visible spirit? Finally, dare my opponents charge the 
true (rod, the infinite power that rules the universe, 
with ever having thus possessed a body like the body 
of a man ; w T ith ever having thus been weary from 
walking, like a man ; with ever having thus rested in 
the shade of a tree, like a man ; with ever having thus 
had dirty feet, like a man; with ever having thus 
washed its feet, like a man ; with ever having thus, at 
a man's table, filled its stomach with material food, like 
a man; with ever having thus been limited in its pres- 
ence and its power; with ever having been, in short, 
thus a mere man? And, in giving this degrading de- 
scription of their own God, a myth though lie be, are 
they not again guilty of blasphemy? 

"And the Lord was with Judah ; and he drave out the 
inhabitants of the mountains ; but could not drive out 
the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots 
of iron" (Jtid. i, 19). Are not my opponents again 
guilty of great blasphemy in thus charging God with 
being unable to overcome a few "chariots of iron?' 

In the last six verses of the thirty-third chapter of 
Exodus, we have, between God and his chief favorite, 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

Moses, a very unique dialogue, in which Moses asks to 
see God's glory, expecting, no doubt, that God would 
graciously show his face, in which his glory was sup- 
posed to lie. In this expectation, however, Moses 
was sadly disappointed. God informed him that his 
(God's) face could not be seen ; that a sight of it 
would be instant death to any mortal beholder. He 
did not say why his face, if seen, would kill the be- 
holder, but he clearly intimated that it was the excess- 
ive glory of that part of his body which would be so 
disastrous to an}' one who should gaze upon it. He 
declared, therefore, that, under the circumstances, the 
best that he could do would be to show the antipode 
of his face, his "back parts."' which, being far less 
glorious than his face, could be seen with comparative 
safety. Disappointed in his hope of seeing any more 
glorious part. Moses was now glad to see even those 
parts, the least glorious of all. He therefore stood all 
agog for the show. Before the curtain (God's gar- 
ment) rose, however, God required Moses to stand 
back in a cleft or crevice of the rock upon which they 
were standing, so that he could not see anything ex- 
cept what was directly in front of him. Besides this, 
while getting ready to show the parts promised, God 
held one of his hands over the eyes of the exceed- 
ingly meek (?) man, lest he might get a glimpse of 
some of the more glorious parts of the divine organ- 
ism. When all was ready, however, he took awav his 
hand, raised the curtain (his own petticoat), and 
opened the show — made a shockingly indecent expos- 
ure of his "back parts" to the delighted gaze of the 
show-loving old Moses. Where were the C<>mstocks 



30 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

and the other guardians of the public morals while this 
scene was being enacted ? 

And now, let me ask, how can my opponents have 
the face to contend that the only true God — the in- 
finite sum of all the forces that inhere in matter and 
that govern the universe, ever did draw itself in, on 
every side, from all portions of the in#nite universe, 
and did thus, in a bodily form like that of a man, take 
its place upon a small mountain of this little planet, 
and make an indecent exposure of its "back parts" to 
gratify the morbid curiosity of one old man 9 Couid 
blasphemy be possibly carried to any greater extent 
than they have carried it in this instance by contending 
that God actually was guilty of this abominably dis- 
graceful conduct, that he actually was guilty of insult- 
ing the world by having this supremely disgusting ac- 
count of it recorded, and that he actually is utterly 
unchanged — that he actually is no more decent lo-dav 
than he was then? I boldly deny that God was ever 
guilty of such infamous conduct. I boldly denounce 
the story as an atrocious slander, a horrible blasphemy 
which should sink both its inventors and its defenders 
into the lowest depths of perdition. What would you 
say of this story if, instead of being thus given in 
vour own Bible and concerning your own God, it bad 
been given in some pagan Bible and concerning some 
pagan deity? Would you not point it out as proof 
positive of the abominable nature of the religion of 
those pagans? Would you recommend as a solemn 
duty, especially to your children, the reading of a pa- 
gan Bible filled with similar accounts of the similar 
indecencies practiced by the pagan deities? Would 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 31 

you believe that any such accounts were true if they 
were recorded in any other book than your own 
Bible and concerning any other deity than your own 
god? Can you not believe worse things of your 
own Bible and your own God than you could be- 
lieve concerning any other Bible or any other god? 
Would any decent god make so indecent an expos- 
ure of his "back parts?" And would an indecent 
god, if guilty of such conduct, be likely to proclaim 
his guilt thus to the world? What would you say 
of my story if I should tell you that I had met 
God in a bodily form, out upon' some little hill of 
your own neighborhood; that I had there held a long 
and familiar conversation with him; that I had van- 
quished him in an argument, and that I had induced 
him to show me his — his — his " back parts ? " Would 
you, even on my own direct testimony, which I be- 
lieve has never been called in question, believe that 
these events had actually occurred ? And would you 
believe that the party who showed me his "back 
parts " was actually the infinitely great and glorious 
God or power that rules the universe? If you would 
not believe all these things on my direct and unim- 
peached testimony, how can you believe them on the 
mere hearsay testimony of an unknown story-teller 
whose character for veracity always has been seriously 
called in question ? 

The custom of thus exhibiting only the "back 
parts" of their respective deities, and of thus pretend- 
ing that their faces were too glorious to be gazed upon 
by mortal eyes, is said to have- been once a very com- 
mon one among the religious sects of nearly all conn 



32 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

tries. Indeed, it is said to prevail, even at the present 
time, in Thibet and Japan, in which countries the 
deities, or at least a portion of them, are simply living 
men who, by some priestly process, are changed into 
true and living gods. From this supremely disgust- 
ing pagan custom our Bible story in question un- 
doubtedly originated. Many priests, too, of more 
than ordinary ambition and cunning, who have not 
claimed to be gods, but who have claimed to be the 
special favorites and boon companions of their respect- 
ive gods, have put on vails, and then pretended that, 
by contact with the. gods, they had absorbed so much 
of the divine afflatus that their own faces, ugly enough 
no doubt in fact, had become too glorious to be safely 
gazed upon by common mortals. This priestly trick, 
which, with many others, Moses is said to have prac- 
ticed with great success, was well calculated to impose 
upon the credulity of the ignorant and superstitious peo- 
ple of remote and dark ages. All the blasphemies, how- 
ever, which I have thus far proved against my oppo- 
nents, are as nothing when compared with those which 
I shall now proceed to prove against them. Those 
which I have proved consist, as yo u know, principally 
in charging God with ignorance, with weakness, with 
being finite in his presence, and with false and vain- 
glorious assertions. Those which I shall yet prove 
consist in charging him with the far graver offenses of 
encouraging and even commanding the practice of 
lying, of cheating, of robbing, of murder, of slavery 
of polygamy, of concubinage, of common prostitution, 
and of almost every other form of crime and of immor- 
ality ; and in charging him with being himself person- 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 33 

all v guilty of having il created evil," of Laving commit- 
ted perjury, adultery, and murder: of having been 
shockingly jealous, treacherous, cruel, selfish, dishonest, 
revengeful, and cowardly ; and of having required and 
accepted human sacrifices. These are fearfully blas- 
phemous charges to bring against God. and yet I will 
fully prove that my opoonents are guilty of the blas- 
phemy of bringing against him all of these and many 
more equally grave charges. Since the same passages 
by which I prove one fact will often prove several 
others equally important to my purpose. I shall not 
attempt to prove all the facts separately. 

In Ex. xxii, 2-6. we read : c: If thou buy an Hebrew 
servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh 
he shall go out free for nothing. . . . If his mas- 
ter have given him a wife, and she have borne him 
sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be 
her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if 
the servant shall plainly say. I love my master, my 
wife, and my children : I will not go out free: Then 
his master shall bring him unto the judges: he shall 
also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post: and 
his master shall bore his ear through with an awl • 
and he shall serve him forever." From this we learn 
that God approved slavery, even t tie abominable 
slavery of brethren to their brethren. "We also learn 
that a brutal slave, one who cared nothingfor his wife 
and his children, was rewarded for his brutality bv 
being permitted to abandon them, and to go free at 
the end of six years: while a good and loving husband 
and father, one who could not bear the thought of 
thus abandoning his dear ones to endure slavery alone, 



3-i THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

was cruelly punished for his goodness and his affec- 
tion, by being compelled to have his ears bored through 
with an awl, to be thus ignominiously branded like an 
ox, and to become a slave, a piece of property, a head 
of live-stock "forever." And the author of this un- 
speakably abominable law was the God that you, my 
opponents, have adopted, that you now worship, and 
that you declare to be utterly unchangeable — utterly 
incapable of ever becoming any better — any less an 
approver of such slavery than he was when he gave 
tli is law. If, then, this same unimproved pro-slavery 
God should conclude to have you, who happen to be 
so unfortunate as to be very poor, sold as slaves to 
your more fortunate brethren for six years, and if, at 
the end of that time, he should compel you either to 
abandon forever your wives and your little ones, or to 
have your ears bored through with awls, and your- 
selves made slaves forever, what would you think of 
his conduct? And yet, would such treatment be anv 
worse if inflicted upon yourselves than it was when, 
for a similar misfortune, it was inflicted upon equal lv 
good and affectionate Hebrew husbands and fathers ? 
In this passage, and in all similar passages, you will 
notice that God addresses himself exclusively to the 
wealthy and fortunate classes who are able to buy 
slaves. He never deigns to speak a word to the poor 
and unfortunate classes who are liable to be bought as 
slaves. He is exclusively the rich man's — the mas- 
ter's — God. He is never the God of the poor man — of 
the slave. He always says, "If thou buy," etc., never 
"If thou be bought," etc. And do you believe that 
this actually is the inspired word of God? Do }'ou 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 3u 

believe that be — that the infinitely great and glorious 
power that rules the universe — was ever guilty of con- 
duct half so atrocious? If you do, how can you con- 
sent, unless it be through abject fear, to serve so atro- 
cious a monster? If you do not, how dare you thus 
blasphemously charge him with such guilt? 

"If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, 
she shall not go out as the men-servants do " (Ex. 
xxi, 7). "Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our 
brethren, our children as their children : and lo, we 
bring into bondage our sons and Our daughters to be 
servants, and some of our daughters are brought into 
bondage already ; neither is it in our power to redeem 
them ; for other men have our lands and our vine- 
yards " (Neb. v, 5) From these passages we learn that 
God authorized fathers to sell their own children, es- 
pecially their own daughters, into slavery; and that, 
when they had been thus made slaves, the daughters 
were not permitted to go out free at the end of six 
years, as were the Hebrew male slaves. The females 
had to remain mere chattels forever. From these, and 
from the following passages, we also learn that if the 
poor among God's peculiar people did not pay their 
debts by voluntarily selling themselves or their children 
into slavery, God authorized their creditors, with whom 
he seems always to have taken side, to seize them, or 
their children, or both, and make slaves of them : 
"And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen 
poor, and be sold unto thee '' (Lev. xxv, 39). " Now 
there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons 
of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my 
husband is dead ; and thou knowest that thv servant 



3(3 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

did fear the Lord ; and the creditor is come to take 
unto him my two sons to be bondmen" (2 Kings iv, 
1). What would you think of this God whom you 
have adopted, and whom you declare to be "without 
parallax or shadow of turning,'' who you declare to be 
no better now than he was then, if, as in former times, 
lie should thus now authorize men to sell their own 
children into slavery; and if he should thus authorize 
your creditors to make slaves of you and of your chil- 
dren ? Would you still sing his praises so vociferously 
as you now do? If not, why do you sing them at all ? 
Is he any better now than he was when he did these 
things to poor Hebrews, and any better than he would 
be if he should do the same things to you? Are you 
not real blasphemers when you charge him with such 
acts? 

"Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which 
thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round 
about you ; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bond- 
maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers 
that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and 
of their families that are with you. . . . And ye 
shall take them as an inheritance for your children 
after you, to inherit them for a possession, thev shall 
be your bondmen forever'' (Lev. xxv, 44-46). From 
this we learn that God not only permitted his chosen 
people to traffic for gain in human beings the same as 
in cattle, not only permitted them thus to traffic in the 
sons and the daughters of their neighbors and their 
guests, but also actually commanded them to do so, 
and declared that the persons thus reduced to slavery 
should be "bondmen forever." He certainly ap- 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. di 

proved slavery, therefore, in this, its worst form, and 
fully intended that in this form it should be practiced 
; - forever." He is certainly responsible, then, for all the 
wrongs, for all the horrors, for all the abominations of 
slavery that have ever cursed those countries in which 
the teachings of the Bible have been accepted as of di- 
vine authority. The slaveholders of the Southern States 
were certainly correct in claiming, as they did, that ac- 
cording to the plainest teachings of the Bible, slavery 
was an institution of divine origin — an institution, too, 
which could never with God's approbation be over- 
thrown. But for these teachings of the Bible slavery 
would never have existed upon this continent. Those 
slaveholders were certainly correct, also, in claiming, 
as they did, that those who fought for the overthrow 
of slavery were fighting against God and the Bible. 
For one, I am proud to say that I fought against 
slavery, and against this pro-slavery God and this pro- 
slavery Bible ; and that I helped to overcome them all. 
But how is it with my pro-Bible opponents, who also 
fought against God, the Bible, and slavery? Are 
they sure that God will noi damn them for thus help- 
ing me and other Infidels to defeat him, and to over- 
throw one of his most favored institutions? I deny, 
however, that the true God — the infinite power that 
rules the universe — ever did thus approve slavery and 
command the practice of it " forever;" and I denounce 
as hard-mouthed blasphemers all those who have the 
impious audacity to contend that it ever did do any 
such things. 

"I form light, and create darkness; I make peace, 
and create evil " (Is. xlv, 7). In this passage, light, 



38 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

darkness, peace, and evil are evidently all spoken of 
in their entirety; all light, all darkness, all peace, and 
all evil are undeniably meant; and God is made just 
as fully the creator of evil as he is of light, peace, or 
darkness. So in Amos iii, 6: "Shall there be evil in a 
city, and the Lord hath not done it?" God seems 
surprised that people should look upon any form of 
evil as having any other source, of author, than him- 
self. So Job ii, 10, says: "Shall we receive good at 
the hand of God, aril shall we not receive evil ?" Upon 
whom did Job evidently look as the source of evil? 
" For the inhabitants of Maroth waited carefully for 
good: but evil came down from the Lord unto the 
gate of Jerusalem " (Mic. i, 12). If there had been no 
evil in God, could evil have" thus come " down from 
him?'' "And the Lord repented of the evil which he 
thought to do unto his people'' (Ex. xxxiv, 14). Of 
necessity, that " which he thought to do unto his peo- 
ple " must have been either an act right and proper for 
him to perform, or one wrong and improper. If it was 
a right and proper act, then be " repented" of having 
"thought to do" that which was right and proper. If 
it was a wrong and improper act, then he had " thought 
to do" that which was wrong and improper, and, as 
we learn from the context, he actually would have 
done it, had not Moses shamed him out of his wicked 
intention. Interpret the language as we may, there- 
fore, it involves a grave charge of guilt against God. 
And can my opponents bring such a charge against 
God and not be blasphemers ? 

"Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil 
against thee out of thine own house, and I will lake 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. d\) 

thy wives before thine ejes, and give them unto thy 
neighbor; and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight 
of this sun " (2 Sam. xii, 11). And now, let me ask, 
do you. my opponents, truly believe that the infinite]) 7 
great and glorious power that rules the universe ever 
did make and execute so unspeakably abominable a 
threat? If not, then you virtually admit that the 
God whom you worship, and whom you declare to be 
guilty of these things, is not the great and glorious 
power that rules the universe. You virtually admit 
that your God — the guilty one — is either a myth, or 
an inferior and evil deity. Do not dare, then, to 
longer assert that he is the Supreme Ruler of the uni- 
verse. This atrocious threat to openly outrage a num- 
ber of innocent women, David's wives, was professedly 
made against David, with whom Gjd, it seems, was 
having a kind of lovers' quarrel. The punishment, 
however, as you see, was to fall upon other and inno- 
cent parties. Instead of punishing the offender, David 
himself, God permitted him to live right on, undis- 
turbed, in all his regal splendor, carousing with his 
many wives and concubines, and, for the present, sat- 
isfied his vengeance by killing one of the offender's 
infant children. Having by this cruel and cowardly 
murder temporarily appeased his wrath, he fixed upon 
Absalom, one of David's own sons, as his instrument 
with which to execute his monstrous intentions against 
David's wives, who were not guilty of any offense at 
all. At that time Absalom was a wonderfully hand- 
some, noble, and manly youth of nineteen — the idol 
of his father, the pride of the whole nation. Having, 
according to the chronology of the Bible, waited eleven 



40 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

years, sullenly nursing his malice while the lad should 
attain full manhood, God took possession of him, and, 
by almighty power, which of course Absalom could 
not resist, led him on to commit the unspeakably cruel 
and revolting act of ravishing his father's wives — his 
own step-mothers — on the top of a house whither lie 
had them dragged "in the sight of this sun," as God 
had threatened, and in the sight of all the people. In 
all that he did, Absalom was faithfully doing God's 
will — doing just what God irresistibly made him do. 
If he could have resisted the almight}^ influences with 
which God was leading him to commit this atrocious 
crime, he probably would have resisted them. In this 
case, however, the crime w^ould never have been com- 
mitted at all ; and, for want of power to carry it out, 
God would have failed in his worse than hellish un- 
dertaking, and his atrocious threat would have proved 
to be simply an atrocious lie. In order to make true 
his own words, he had to render it utterty impossible 
for Absalom to take any other course than the one he 
did take. And yet, after having thus forever black- 
ened the previously fair name of this brave and noble 
young man, he had him remorselessly butchered, to- 
gether with twenty thousand other men w r ho weie 
guilty of no offense but that of doing God's will. 

In this case, as in scores of other similar cases, with- 
out at all consulting their own wishes in regard to the 
matter, God, for the very vilest of purposes — that of 
having them publicly ravished- arbitrarily disposed 
of the women and of their virtue to whomsoever he 
pleased. And now, let me ask, what would the pure 
and modest women of our own time — the faithful 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 41 

wives and fond mothers who worship this Bible mon- 
strosity — think of him if, to spite some man with 
whom he had quarreled many years ago, he should 
now conclude to have them thus forcibly dragged to 
the top of a house, and there, :, in the sight of this 
sun," in the sight of one another, and in the sight of all 
the people, outraged in this unspeakably atrocious man- 
ner? How would my opponents like to have their own 
wives, their own mothers, their own sisters, and their 
own daughters outraged in this same way by this same 
God whom they now worship? And was his conduct 
on the occasion in question, when performed upon 
other equally good, pure, and modest women, any less 
atrocious than it would now be if performed upon our 
own women? And is he any better now than he was 
then? If not, is he not a hideous monster still? And 
w T ill the worshipers of this monster dare to say that 
they are any better than "he is? Will they ever try 
to be any better than is their God? If not, will they 
not always be capable of committing, and liable to 
commit, such crimes as their God is known to have 
committed? Could my opponents in any other way 
do so much to injure the cause of virtue as thev do 
by these horribly blasphemous slanders against God? 
I assure you that he was never guilty of any such 
crimes. 



42 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 



LECTURE SECOND. 

In ihe fourth chapter of Judges we have an ac- 
count of a terrible battle between the Hebrews and 
their neighbors, the Canaanites. The latter people 
being utterly overthrown, their commander, Sisera, all 
alone, fled toward the tent of Heber, a friend of his, 
who belonged to a neutral tribe. As he approached 
this tent, Jael, his friend's wife, came out to meet him, 
entreated him to come into the tent, and assured him 
that while he was under her protection he had nothing 
to fear. Gladly accepting what he believed to be 
the true and timely hospitality of a real friend, he did 
enter the tent, and, being very weary, soon fell asleep. 
Then he was foully murdered by this female fiend, the 
wife of his friend. The twenty-first verse says : "Then 
Jael, Heber's wife, took a nail of the tent, and took a 
hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and 
smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the 
ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he 
died." And this was die way to please the God of 
the Bible — the God that my opponents worship. 
Those most hideous of all modern murderers, the 
Benders, of Kansas, who butchered their guests by the 
dozen, were doubtless trying to please this bloody 
God. At any rate, they did that which, according to 
t lie story before us, was bound to be pleasing in his 
sight. 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 43 

When considered in connection with all its circum- 
stances of monstrous treachery, violated hospitality, 
and cold-blooded deliberation, this murder of Sisera, in 
the hideousnessof its atrocity, stands without a paral- 
lel in the whole world's annals of crime. Had the He- 
brews been beaten, and had their leader, in like man- 
ner, sought refuge in her tent, this foul female fiend 
would, in the same way, have murdered him, in order 
to win favor with his victorious enemies. What she 
did was done from the very lowest and most selfish of 
purposes, and not for any lovefor God or for his people. 
And yet the Bible, which my opponents contend con- 
tains nothing but truth — nothing bat the most excellent 
teachings — represents God, the God that you worship, 
and that you strive to be like, as being wonderfully 
pleased with this most foul of all recorded murders. 
Through his prophetess, Deborah, he is represented as 
saying : " Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of. 
Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women 
in the tent " (Jud. v, 24). In thus charging God with 
being pleased with this atrocious murder, with be- 
stowing his richest blessings upon the murderess as 
a reward for her crime, and with holding her up for 
the admiration and the imitation of the world, my op- 
ponents are certainly guilty of blasphemy, and of the 
encouraging of treachery, murder, and other atrocious 
crimes. Unfortunately, too, this stoiy, unlike most 
of the other immoral and crime-encouraging stories of 
the Bible, stands uncontradicted by any other pas- 
sages. There is not in the whole Bible a single word 
that goes to prove that this shocking story is not true, 
or that your God is not, as it represents him to be, a 



44 THE REAL BLASPHEMEHS. 

hideous murder-approving monster. It is no wonder, 
therefore, that the believers in the religion of the 
Bible have always been noted for their treachery and 
their thirst for blood. It is no wonder that they have 
always regarded the killing of infidels, heretics and 
heathens, by means the most foul, by tortures the 
most terrible, as one of the most acceptable methods 
of doing God service. A book containing teachings 
so derogatoiy to the character of God is simply a book 
of blasphemies, and all who sustain it are blas- 
phemers. And can such blasphemies, when stuffed 
into the minds of the unreasoning masses as divine 
truths, be otherwise than destructive to all that is 
noble in the nature of man? Can they have any 
other than a very pernicious influence upon the moral 
characters of all those into the minds of whom they 
have been thus stuffed? 

"And again the anger of the Lord was kindled 
against Israel, and he [God himself, you see] moved 
David against them to say, Go number Israel and Ju- 
dah " (2 Sam. xxiv, 1). How this order of their king 
to "number" the people could be "against them.'* I 
cannot understand. Be this as it may, however, 
David did as God " moved " him to do, and then God 
flew into a fearful fury, and, to punish David for his 
obedience, slew seventy "thousand innocent men, 
women, and children, who did not even know why 
they were so cruelly slain. What could be more hor- 
rible in its cruelty, or more detestable in its injustice, 
than was this wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter? 
What harm was there in David's obeying God when 
God ;i moved " him to take a census of the people? If 



THE REAL BLASPHEMER& 45 

the obeying of that order was a great crime on the 
part of David, was not the giving of it a still greater 
crime on the part of God himself? Was David any- 
thing more than an accomplice in this crime ? Why, 
then, did God let himself and his only accomplice go 
free, and wreak his vengeance upon seventy thou- 
sand innocent persons ? Are not my opponents guilty 
of great blasphemy when they thus charge this atro- 
cious act against God — against the infinitely great and 
glorious power that rules the universe ? 

In Josh, vii, 24-26, we read, "And Joshua, and all 
Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and 
the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, 
and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his 
asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had : 
and they brought them unto the valley of Achor. And 
Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord 
shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned 
him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they 
had stoned them with stones. And they raised over 
him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the 
Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger." Prob- 
ably Joshua did all this in order to get into his own 
pockets Acban's "silver" and his "wedge of gold,'' 
which he pretended to burn, but which we know he 
did not burn. We know that silver and gold cannot 
be burned. 

It seems that this Achan had, for his own use, con- 
cealed a portion of the plunder which he had taken in 
one of the many marauding expeditions which Joshua 
and his band of cut-throats, God's peculiar people, 
made against their inoffensive neighbors. For this 



46 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

act God did not at first have Achan himself punished. 
He merely paved the way to Achan's punishment by 
having thirty-six innocent persons slain. The slaying 
of these persons made known the fact that he was in 
a towering rage about something, and led to an 
investigation which resulted in the discovery that 
Achan was the party for whose offense these persons 
bad been slain. By treachery Joshua then prevailed 
upon Achan to confess his offense, whatever it might 
be. The nineteenth verse says: "And Joshua said 
unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the 
Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto him : 
and tell me now what thou hast done ; hide it not 
from me." Thus treacherously appealed to, Achan 
did make a full confession. Instead of being let off, 
however, with some light punishment, as he had un- 
doubtedly been led to believe that he would be if he 
would make a full confession, he was taken, as we 
have seen, together with his innocent children, his 
sheep, his oxen, and his asses, and mercilessly stoned 
to death and then burned. 

Thus you see that, because one of the plunderers 
kept back a portion of the plunder, the God that you 
worship, and that you condemn me to eternal burn- 
ing for not worshiping, worked himself up into a 
towering rage, and caused to be brutally butchered 
thirty-six innocent men, a whole family of innocent 
children, and a large number of innocent sheep, oxen, 
and asses. And this is only one of a vast number of 
instances in which, for some trifling offense committed 
by some other party, this adopted God of yours caused 
to be cruelly put to death large numbers of innocent 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 47 

men, women, children, and domestic animals. And 
yet my opponents, after thus blasphemously describ- 
ing their God as a monstrous embodiment of injustice 
and cruelty, have the effrontery to contend that he is 
worthy to be loved, praised, and worshiped by us all ; 
that, in goodness, he is infinitely superior to any 
human being, and that he is the only true God, the 
infinite power that rules the universe. They do this, 
too, while admitting that he is no better now than he 
was then, and that he is utterly incapable of ever be- 
coming any better. If they wish to do so, they may 
continue to worship this mythical monster, and to 
strive to become like him. As for myself, however, I 
can see nothing worthy of praise or of imitation in his 
whole blood-blackened history. I would much rather 
worship the devil, against whom no such charges were 
ever preferred. 

" And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy mas- 
ter's wives into thy bosom, and I gave thee the house 
of Israel and of Judah ; and if that had been too 
little, I would, moreover, have given unto thee such 
and such things" (2 Sam. xii, 8). At the time men- 
tioned in this passage, David, to whom all these 
things were given, already had a harem well filled 
with wives and concubines. Instead, however, of 
reproving him for his wholesale practice of polygamy, 
your God, we see, aided and encouraged him to in- 
dulge in that practice on a still more extensive scale, 
by thus making him a present of a whole houseful 
more of wives all at one time. These women were 
all the widows of Saul, who was one of David's many 
fathers-in law. Of course, then, all of these women 



4-8 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

were David's own mothers-in-law. Their own wishes 
were never consulted in regard to this wholesale trans- 
fer of themselves like so much mere property, and 
together with a lot of other property, to their own son- 
in-law. This, however, was probably the best method 
then known of disposing of mothers-in-law. At any 
rate, it was God's method ; and were it not for our un- 
godly laws, which will not permit them to do so, large 
numbers of my opponents, in their great desire to be 
as far as possible like their God, would doubtless get 
rid of their own mothers-in-law by this same beautiful 
and heaven-approved method of marrying them. 

When God was thus aiding and encouraging the 
practice of polygamy and concubinage, he must, of ne- 
cessity, have regarded that practice as right and proper, 
or as wrong and improper; and since, according to the 
unanimous testimony of all my opponents, he never 
changes, he must, of equal necessity, regard that prac- 
tice now just as he regarded it then. If, therefore, he 
regarded it as right and proper then, he is bound, you 
see, of necessity, to regard it as equally right and 
proper now. And if he regards it as right and proper, 
is it not bound to be so in fact? Dare you charge him 
with being deceived in regard to the nature of this 
practice? Dare you claim that you know any better 
than does he what is right and proper, and what is 
wrong and improper? Dare you claim that you are 
any better in your opinions, your principles, and your 
practices than be was and is in his? If not — if you 
admit that when he was aiding and encouraging the 
practice of polygamy and concubinage he regarded 
these institutions as right and proper — if, as you then 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 49 

must, you admit that lie still regards them as right and 
proper, and if, as you then also must you admit, that 
he is correct in his views concerning them, do you not 
admit that they actually are right and proper? and do 
you not undeniably throw the whole great weight of 
God's influence, the whole great weight of your own 
influence, in favor of the present practice of those in- 
stitutions? Where is Anthony Comstock? Why 
does he not arrest you for your immoral teachings? 
How dare you condemn in the Mormons and others 
the practice of these God-approved institutions which 
you are thus compelled to admit are right and proper? 
If, on the other hand, at the time of which we are 
speaking, God regarded the institutions in question as 
wrong and improper, then he undeniably aided and 
encouraged, among his chosen people, among those 
whom he had selected to be models for the imitation 
of the whole world, the practice of institutions which 
he himself regarded as wrong and improper, and which, 
if he was not deceived in regard to their nature, ac- 
tually were wrong and improper. Without a decided 
change, therefore, for the better — and my opponents 
do not claim for him any such change — is lie not 
bound to be just as much inclined now as he ever was 
to aid and encourage his worshipers in the practice 
of these wicked institutions? In any possible view of 
the case, are not my opponents guilty of blasphemy, 
when, by contending that this story is the inspired 
word of God, they make him, with any possible inter- 
pretation of the story, an aider and encourager of 
these gross forms of immorality ? 

The Bible, however, does not leave us in doubt as 



50 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

to how God regarded polygamy, concubinage, lying, 
treachery, murder, etc., of which David was guilty, 
but which we now almost unanimously condemn at 
the present time as wrong and improper. The Bible 
makes God approve all these things. " Because David 
did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and 
turned not aside from anything that he commanded 
him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of 
Uriah the Hittite " (1 Kings xv, 5). From this gen- 
eral and emphatic expression of approval, and from 
several others that might be given, we learn that with 
the single exception named God approved all the long 
black list of immoralities and crimes with which David's 
life was crowded. We learn that all these things were 
not only " right in the eyes of the Lord," but that they 
were also actually "commanded" by him. A few of 
these acts we will now notice. 

" And David took from him a thousand chariots, 
and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand 
footmen ; David also houghed all the chariot horses, 
but reserved of them an hundred chariots" (1 Chron. 
xviii, 4). To say nothing of the injustice and general 
cruelty of the war that David was then waging against 
his inoffensive neighbors, what could have been more 
unnecessary or more fiendishly cruel than was his act of 
houghing or hamstringing so many thousand of poor 
harmless horses, and thus causing them to die in lin- 
gering torments? And yet this horrible act of cruelty 
was 7iot only "right in the eyes of the Lord," but was 
also "commanded" by him, as the same horrible act 
had been on several former occasions. (See Josh, xi, 
6. 9.) Thus (by the perpetration of many atrocious 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 51 

acts of cruelty to men and to horses) the Lord pre- 
served David whithersoever he went " (1 Chron. xviii, 
6). Where was the Society for the Prevention of Cru- 
elty to Animals? 

" And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth 
up to the gutter, and smiteth . . . the lame and 
the blind, that are hated of David's soul (could he 
have had any soul ?), he shall be chief and captain " 
(2 Sam. v, 8). " The lame and the blind " mentioned 
here, who, because of their unfortunate physical in- 
firmities, were so " hated of David's soul," and whom, 
he wished to have mercilessly slaughtered because of 
their misfortunes, seem to have been a crowd of utterly 
helpless creatures, who, for the purpose of asking 
alms, were wont to congregate at the gate of Jerusa- 
lem while it was still in the hands of the Jebusites. 
As we learn from the parallel account (1 Chron. xi, 6), 
Joab slaughtered all these helpless creatures, and, for 
this unparalleled act of cowardly cruelty, was made 
commander-in-chief of the armies of the Lord. And 
in this again, " David did that which was right in the 
sight of the Lord." " So (by such deeds as this) David 
waxed greater and greater : for the Lord of hosts was 
with him " (1 Chron. xi, 9). If it be not blasphemy to 
thus charge God with approving, and with even com- 
manding, the butchery of the poor lame and blind 
wretches in question, in what does blasphemy con- 
sist? 

" And David gathered all the people together and 
went to Kabbah, and fought against it, and took it. 
And he brought forth the people that were therein and 
put them under saws ; and under harrows of iron, and 



52 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

under axes of iron, and made them pass through the 
brick-kiln, and thus did he unto all the cities of the 
children of Ammon " (2 Sam. xii, 29, 31). It is but 
reasonable to suppose that, knowing the fearful faie 
that awaited themselves and their loved ones in case 
they were taken alive by this bloody monster, most of 
the men capable of bearing arms would die fighting. 
Most of those taken, therefore, must have been women, 
children, and helpless men. And would not a speedy 
death have been a severe enough punishment to inflict 
upon these poor helpless creatures for the crime of 
having lands and other property that David wanted ? 
Was there any call for him to torture them to death 
by thus putting u them under saws, and under harrows 
of iron, and under axes of iron," and by thus making 
"them pass through the brick-kiln?" And my op- 
ponents blasphemously declare that in this case, also, 
"David did that which was right in the sight of the 
Lord, and turned not aside from anything that he com- 
manded him." 

"And David and his men went up, and invaded the 
Greshurites, and the Grezrites, and the Amalekites. 
. . . . And David smote the land, and left neither 
man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and 
the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the appa- 
rel, and returned, and came to Achish. And Achish 
said, Whither have ye made a road to-day? And 
David said, Against the south of Judah, and against 
the south of the Jerahmeelites, and against the south of 
the Kenites. And David saved neither man nor 
woman alive, to bring tidings to Grath, saying. Lest 
they should tell on us. . . . And Achish believed 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. S3 

David N (i Sam. xxvii, 8-12). From the context we 
learn that, when hotly pursued by Saul, who wished 
to slay him, David fled to Achish, king of Gath, who 
took him and his followers in, gave them a whole 
city to dwell in, and in every way treated them 
royally as honored guests. In return for this noble 
and sorely-needed hospitality, David, as we have seen, 
went out with his band of six hundred cut-throats, 
and treacherously murdered and robbed whole com- 
m unities of friendly and inoffensive people, the sub. 
jects of his generous friend and host, the king of 
Gath. It is no wonder, then, that, after this monstrous 
net of treachery and ingratitude, "David saved neither 
man nor woman alive, to bring tidings to Gath, say- 
ing, Lest they should tell on us." From this prince of 
murderers doubtless came the murderers' motto, "Dead 
men tell no tales." The only wonder is that this 
friendly and generous king believed the lying report 
which, as we have seen, was given on his return by 
this monster of iniquity. And yet, in committing this 
horrible compound crime, unparalleled in atrocity by 
anything ever recorded in the annals of the world — 
this compound crime of lying, robbery, treachery, 
ingratitude, and murder, if not of rape and arson 
"David," so say my opponents, "did that which was 
right in the sight of the Lord, and turned not aside 
from anything that he commanded him." And these 
are only a very few of the vast multitude of atrocious 
acts that rendered David so emphatically a man after 
God's own heart. 

" And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a 
wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms. . . 



54 THE HEAL BLASPHEMERS. 

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim ; 
which conceived and bare him a son " (Hos. i, 2, 3.) 
This was the first communication ever received from 
God by Hosea, and it, as you see, was a peremptory 
command to him to "go " and perform a very immoral 
act — to "go" and become a he-prostitute. Further on 
we learn that this woman of " whoredoms " bore 
Hosea two other children, and that, her charms having 
by that time become somewhat faded, he then grew 
weary of her, quarreled with her, called her by foul 
names, threatened to destroy her property and to strip 
her naked in the street, and drove her from his house. 
That he had been living with her during all this time 
in a state of open whoredom, without any pretense of 
marriage, we learn from the first four verses of the 
next chapter: "Plead with your mother," he said, 
" plead ; for she is not my wife, neither am I her hus- 
band. . . . And I will not have mercy upon her 
children; for they be the children of whoredoms. "' 
These " children of whoredoms," to whom this holy 
old he-whore prophet of the Lord was thus speaking, 
were his own children by Gomer, begotten upon her 
as he himself declared, in the most shameful whore- 
dom ; and, because these children were the results of 
his own criminal intimacy with their mother, he de- 
clared that he would "not have mercy upon" them. 
Would not this holy old man's righteous indignation 
at Gomer's shameful conduct have appeared to much 
better advantage if he had not himself been an equally, 
if not a more guilty, participant in all that shameful 
conduct? And why did he see nothing wrong in her con- 
duct — nothing, at any rate, displeasing either to him- 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. ,'J.> 

self or to his lewdness-lovingGod — until after she had 
borne him several children, and her beauty, as a result 
of bearing him these children, perhaps, had become 
somewhat faded ? May it not be that he already had his 
holy libidinous eyes upon a younger and handsomer 
woman of " whoredoms," and that he quarreled with 
Gomer for the express purpose of getting rid of her, 
and of thus making room for this other lewd woman 
in his holy bed? Be this as it may, he certainly did, 
almost immediately, take to his godly embrace another 
woman of notoriously lewd character. Hear the dear 
old fellow tell this portion of his own beautiful story: 
"Then [when he had slept several nights alone, after 
Gomer's departure, and God had noticed how much 
he suffered for want of a woman] said the Lord unto 
me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet 
an adulteress. ... So I bought her to me for 
fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, 
and an half homer of barley: And I said unto her, 
Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not 
play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another 
man: so will I also be for thee " (Hos. iii, 1-3). The 
expression "I bought her to me," evidently means 
nothing more nor less than that he paid in advance the 
fees to which, as a harlot or public prostitute, she was 
entitled for the use of her person. If she were a free 
woman, this fee would go to herself; if not, it would 
go to her master. Having paid these fees, Hosea had 
a right to the exclusive use of her person for as "many 
days" as he had paid for with his "fifteen pieces of 
silver," and his " homer of barley," and his " half 
homer of barlev." Until his time was out — until he 



56 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

had received, in her peculiar kind of merchandise, the 
full value of all this silver and this barley — she had 
no right to "play the harlot," or to "be for another 
man;" and Hosea, who seems to have fully under- 
stood what his own rights were in the matter, and to 
have been fully determined to exact all those rights, 
gave his new purchase to understand that she must 
not venture to take any privileges not guaranteed to 
her by the terms of the contract. What a love of a 
Lord it was that thus kindly furnished Hosea with a 
lewd woman whenever he perceived that this holy old 
man wanted one! JSTo wonder Hosea loved him so 
much ! If he is so kind to my opponents — and since 
he never changes, who knows but that he often may 
be so on the sly — we can easily understand why they, 
too, love bim so much, and praise him so loudly. 
With what refreshing simplicity this man of God — 
this holy old he-whore — tells us how much he paid as 
fees to this prostitute, just what he paid it in, and 
that, by thus prudently paying in advance, he had her 
all to himself " for many days." 

In 2 Tim. iii, 6, Paul says: " All scripture is given 
by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
ness." These bawdy-house accounts of the holy 
Hosea's libidinous adventures, which I stoop to notice 
only that I may expose them, constitute a portion of 
the God-inspired scriptures to which Paul here refers. 
But what "doctrine," what "reproof," what "correc- 
tion," what "instruction in righteousness," do we de- 
rive from these disgusting accounts? If from them 
we derive any " doctrine," is it not the abominable 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 57 

doctrine that, under certain circumstances at least, 
God is pleased to have us practice the lowest and 
most degrading forms of common prostitution — the 
abominable doctrine of unrestricted sexual promiscu- 
ity? Misled by this and other similar teachings of 
the Bible, many pious persons, improperly called free- 
lovers, have openly preached this degrading doctrine, 
and have attempted to openty practice it. If anybody 
derives any "reproof" or any ''correction'' from 
these accounts, who can it be unless it be those ore- 
tended champions of the Bible, my opponents? These 
persons who, while pretending that they are laboring 
for the Lord, have the impious audacity to condemn 
the God-approved, the God-commanded practice of 
prostitution, may, indeed, derive both "reproof" and 
"correction," if not genuine satisfaction, from the 
scriptures in question. If anybody derives any "instruc- 
tion in righteousness" from these scriptures, who can 
it be but these same parties, my opponents? Doubt- 
less many of these holy men deal on the sly in that 
kind of " righteousness," in which Hosea was com- 
manded to indulge, and which cost him "fifteen 
pieces of silver " and a large quantity of "barley." 
As a matter of policy, these men of course pretend to 
condemn the practices in question as prostitution, 
whoredom, etc. They may, however, and doubtless 
often do, learn from Hosea's prudent example to pay 
the prostitute's fees in advance, and thus secure to 
themselves "for many days" the undisturbed posses- 
sion of her peculiar form of merchandise. Can mv 
opponents mention anything else that can possibly be 
derived from these God-inspired scriptures? 



58 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

If, in Hosea s time, God regarded as right and 
proper this open cohabitation with common hired 
prostitutes, in which lie commanded Hosea to engage, 
must he not now, of necessity, regard it as equally 
right and proper when practiced by his worshipers of 
the present time? Has he since that time undergone 
any change in his views concerning this practice? 
And has either the moral or the physical nature of the 
practice itself since then undergone any change ? And 
while my opponents know that (rod regards this prac- 
tice as right and proper, will they be likely to regard 
it as wrong and improper. And will they, except 
when deterred by fear of the law and of public opinion, 
be likely to avoid indulging in it? In this case, is not 
the whole mighty influence of God and the Bible en- 
tirely on the side of the most baneful form of immo- 
rality? The believer reasons simply and correctly as 
follows: "Since God once commanded this practice, 
he must have regarded it as right and proper; and 
since he never changes, he must still regard it as 
right and proper ; and since he cannot be deceived in 
regard to the matter, it must actually be right and 
proper ; and since it is actually right and proper, 
I will indulge in it." Were I a believer, I would 
reason in this manner, arrive at this conclusion, 
and act accordingly. Unbelief alone saves me. If, 
on the other hand, God commanded Hosea, whom he 
set up as a model for the imitation of all men, to do 
that which hehirnself regarded as wrong and improper, 
then he was undeniably a bad and improper God ; and 
since he is utterly unchangeable, he is undeniably a 
bad and improper God now, sure at all times to en- 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 6\) 

courage, and likely at any time 10 command, his wor- 
shipers to engage in the practice of the lowest forms 
of prostitution. Is not his whole mighty influence, 
then, in this case as in the other, entirely on the side 
of immorality ? Believing that their God is pleased 
with such immorality, will not many of his worshipers 
be encouraged by that belief to practice it? In what 
other way could they derive more pleasure from their 
efforts to please him? In any possible view of the 
case, then, can such horribly blasphemous teachings 
concerning God have any other than a direct tendency 
to destroy, in the characters of those who accept them, 
all the principles of morality and virtue? Can we 
wonder that, with the Bible for its code of morals, all 
Christendom is reeking with immorality and crime? 
Can we wonder that the statistics of England and 
Wales show that, according to the population of each 
sect, there are about three hundred times as many 
criminals among the believers in the Bible as there 
are among the avowed Infidels ? 

" But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, 
thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eat- 
est thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. ii, 17). Here 
God made a positive and unconditional threat or 
promise which he certainly never fulfilled. In defi- 
ance of this unreasonable prohibition and threat, Adam 
and Eve, we are told, did have the pluck and the good 
sense to eat all they wanted of that most desirable 
fruit thus so positively and so foolishly prohibited. 
This was the very fruit which God very well knew 
that they most sorely needed. It was the very fruit, 
too, which when making it and making them, he very 



60 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

well knew that they would eat. Indeed, it was the 
very fruit which, "before the foundation of the 
world," he had himself predetermined that they should 
eat. "Before the foundation of the world," as we 
learn elsewhere, he had predetermined to beget him- 
self a son, whose mission on earth should be to redeem 
mankind, or at least a certain portion of them called 
the "elect," from the otherwise fatal effects of a fall 
which was to be brought about by the eating, on the 
part of Adam and Eve, who were not yet created, of 
this very same fruit, which was also not yet created. 
Before he could predetermine a redeemer from a cer- 
tain fall, God had, of necessity, first to predetermine 
that fall. Had he not made it utterly impossible for 
the yet uncreated Adam and Eve to fail to eat the yet 
uncreated fruit in question, and to fall from eating it, 
how could he have foreknown, as he certainly did, 
with absolute certainty, that they would eat of it, and 
that they would fall in consequence of that eating? 
If Adam and Eve could have failed to eat that fruit 
and to fall in consequence of eating it, they probably 
would have so failed : and this failure on their part 
would inevitably have caused an utter failure of all of 
God's plans for the future. In that case, there never 
would have been any fall of man, any redemption 
from that fall, any redeemer, any gospel, any apostles, 
any saints, any Christian church, any hell, any damna- 
tion, any remission of sins, any purgatory, any profitable 
trade for priests, or anything else that God " before 
the foundation of the world " predetermined should 
be. The eating of that fruit by Adam and Eve, 
their fall consequent upon that earing, and their 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 61 

continued existence after that fall, were absolutely 
necessary parts of God's whole great plan for the 
future. The killing of Adam and Eve, as threatened 
"on the day that" they ate of the fruit in question, 
certainly formed no part of that plan. Indeed, by ex- 
terminating the human race from the face of the 
earth, such a killing would have effectually thwarted 
every part of that plan. The fruit, therefore, was 
placed right in the way of Adam and Eve, and the 
proper agencies, all of them (rod's own works, were 
put in operation to make it absolutely certain that 
they would not fail to eat of it. Indeed, if it was not 
made expressly for them to eat, for whom was it 
made? Did G-od himself, in order to know good 
f mm evil, need to eat of it occasionally ? If not, and 
if it was not meant for man, was it not an utterly 
worthless fruit made without any design at all ? 
When Adam and Eve, thus irresistibly led to do so, 
did eat of that fruit, and did by so doing become "as 
Gods, knowing good and evil," God did not, of course, 
kill them as he had so positively declared that 
he would. So far from dying, according to that 
declaration, on the vevy day on which they ate 
the fruit, they began , on that very day, to dress them- 
selves up for a long life, and did live right on 
for nearly a thousand years, and then died, not from 
the effects of eating that fruit, but of extreme old 
age. And God who, if he be indeed omniscient, as all 
ruy opponents declare that he is, must, of necessity, 
see all things in the future as clearly as he sees y 11 
things in the present, knew very well when making 
the promise or threat in question that he would never 



62 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

fulfill it. He knew very well that he did not intend 
ever to fulfill it. If, then, this story be true, as all my 
opponents blasphemously declare that it is, if God 
really did make that silly threat, was he not, in mak- 
ing it, undeniably guilty of telling a wilful, a deliber- 
ate, and an utterly uncalled for falsehood ? 

In Gen. xii, 15, 16, we have the following remark- 
able promises made to Abraham : "'For all the land 
which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy 
seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust 
of the earth ; so that if a man can number the dust of 
the earth, then [and evidently not otherwise] shall thy 
seed also be numbered." These extravagant promises 
have certainly never been fulfilled. Abraham and 
his seed did not possess that land "forever." Indeed, 
for some two thousand years they have not possesssd 
any land at all. Besides this, they have never been, 
in number, " as the dust of the earth." They have 
never been a very numerous people. They could 
always be easily "numbered." In Gen. xv, 18, the 
extent of this land is given : " Unto thy seed have I 
given this land, from the river of Egypt, unto the 
great river the river Euphrates." As here described, 
the land was never given at all. The Hebrews never 
did possess any land near the Nile, the only " river of 
Egypt," and very little, if any, near the Euphrates. 
And, when making these promises, did not God know 
very well that he would never fulfill them? Did he 
everintend to fulfill them? In thus representing him 
as a liar, are not my opponents again guilty of blas- 
phemy? 

In 2 Kings xx, 1, we read: "Set thine house in 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 63 

order, for thou shalt die, and not live." This uncon- 
ditional declaration was made to Hezekiah, who was 
very sick, and who had inquired of God what was to 
be the result of that sickness. Hezekiah, however, 
did not die, as God thus so positively declared that he 
should. On the contrary, he recovered, and lived on 
for many more years. Here, then, by again making God 
out a liar, my opponents are again guilty of blasphemy. 

In Jon. iii,4, we read: '• Yet forty days, and Nineveh 
shall be overthrown." This promise or threat was 
never executed. And since, when making it, God 
must have very well known that he would never ex- 
ecute it, he certainly could not have had any intention 
to ever execute it. Have not my opponents, then, 
again blasphemously made him out a deliberate, if not 
a malicious, liar? 

In the fourteenth chapter of Numbers, God declares 
his intention to break a solemn promise, which, under 
oath, he had often made to the Hebrews. In verse 
30th, referring to this oft-repeated premise, he says : 
" Doubtless ye shall not come into the land concern- 
ing which I sware to make you dwell therein." God 
here admits that he had made a sworn promise to the 
Hebrews, to whom he is speaking, to make them 
** dwell " in a certain land. This promise, of course, 
involved the safely leading of them to that land. On 
the strength of this promise, which was entirely un- 
conditional, he had induced them to leave their com- 
paratively comfortable home in Egypt. Now, however, 
as related in the next three verses, after having drawn 
them out into a terrible desert, in which they are 
utterly helpless, he declares, with a kind of fiendish 



64 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

exultation, that lie intends to deliberately violate this 
his solemnly sworn promise; that, so far from leading 
them safely through to the land in question, as he had 
sworn that he would, he intends to cruelly destroy 
them all on that terrible desert. " But as for you," he 
says, "your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilder- 
ness, . and [by the horrible calamities which 
he proposes to thus treacherously bring upon them] 
ye shall know my breach of promise." And, as we 
learn further on, he actually did execute this horrible 
threat. He actually did thus lay perjury on his own 
soul* (if he had any soul), and actually did thus 
cruelly and treacherously destroy many hundreds of 
thousands of these poor people who had loved him, 
and who had imprudently trusted and followed 
him. And this he did, notwithstanding his prom- 
ise was entirely unconditional — notwithstanding all 
possible conditions, had there been any, were under 
his own control. He did this, too, simply because the 
people had believed the report of a party of distin- 
guished men, whom he himself had selected and sent 
out to spy out the land upon which as a robber he 
was intending to seize, and who had brought back an 
unfavorable, but nearty correct report concerning it 
And what are we to learn from the sad fate of these 
unfortunate people? What can we learn from it, ex- 
cept it be that, as a rule, it is safer to put God's special 
messengers down as unmitigated liars and scoundrels, 
utterly unworthy of belief, than it is to regard them 
as truthful and honorable men, worthy of belief. Had 
the Hebrews put God's chosen messengers down as 
liars, and had rejected their report, they would have 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 65 

escaped the terrible calamities that fell upon them. 
"A word to the wise is sufficient." 

Since, at the time of making the promise in ques- 
tion, all future events were bound to be clearly pres- 
ent to God's infinite prevision, he undeniably must 
have known that the promise would never be fulfilled; 
and, knowing this, he certainty could not have in- 
tended ever to fulfill it; he certainly could not have 
intended ever to do that which he knew was never to 
be done at all. Indeed, he could not possibly have 
foreseen, as actually occurring in the future, anything 
that he had not himself predetermined should occur. 
Since, then, the breaking of the promise in ques- 
tion was thus clearly present to his prevision at the 
time that he made the promise, it is undeniable that 
he made it while fully intending to break it. This 
conclusion is inevitable, and since he himself calls his 
base act on this occasion a " breach of promise." I do 
not think that my opponents will venture to deny that it 
really w r as a " breach of promise." In other words, if 
they still continue to contend that the story is a true 
one, they are compelled to admit that on this occasion 
their adopted God was -guilty of deliberately and ma- 
liciously swearing a lie. If, on the other hand, they 
deny the truth of the story, and claim that he never 
was guilty of thus swearing a lie, then they are com- 
pelled to admit that he certainly was guilty of inspir- 
ing the writer of the story to write a lie very damag- 
ing to his own character. They are compelled to 
choose one horn or the other of this dilemma; and, 
choose whichever horn they may, they inevitably con- 
vict their God of lying. Are they not, then, guilty 



bb THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

of horrible blasphemy? For my own part. I deny 
that God — that the infinitely great and glorious power 
that rules the universe — ever did thus either swear a 
lie or inspire any one to write a lie. When discours- 
ing so glibly upon God's promises, why do my oppo- 
nents never notice this promise? And why do they 
teach that he "cannot lie," w ? hen the Bible thus so 
plainly teaches that he can, and that he does lie ? 

"I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne, and all the 
host of heaven standing on his right hand, and on his 
left. And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab king 
of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gii- 
ead? And one spake saying after this manner, and 
another saying after that manner. Then there came 
out a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will 
entice him. And the Lord said unto him, Where- 
with? And he said, I will go out, and be a lying 
spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord 
said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also pre- 
vail : Go out and do even so. Now therefore, behold, 
the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these 
thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil against 
thee '' (2 Chron. xviii, 18-22). From this we learn 
how God and his saints occupy their time in heaven, 
and for what purposes they occasionally visit the 
earth. From the context, it seems that God had a 
quarrel with Ahab, king of Israel, one of his own 
chosen people, and wished to destroy him, but was not 
able to do so unless he could entice him out of his 
stronghold at Samaria, He therefore resorted to the 
despicable means described in the passages above 
quoted. He sent out one of the professional liars that 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 67 

he had with him there in heaven, and, by means of 
this person's skilfully-told lies, actually did draw Ahab 
out into a disadvantageous position, and, by means of 
this atrocious treachery, actually did accomplish his 
destruction. 

I suppose my opponents will call this godly lying, 
and will loudly praise God for having practiced it on 
this occasion, or for having had it practiced by one of 
his favorite liars in heaven. Indeed, some of my op- 
ponents seem to be laboring faithfully to qualify 
themselves to serve God, when they get to heaven, in 
the same capacity in which this lying spirit so effi- 
ciently served him on the occasion in question. Ahab's 
prophets were not to blame for teaching that whbh 
was not true. They were simply the instruments 
through which God spoke. Being inspired of God, 
or at least of an authorized agent of his, to teach just 
what they did teach, they evidently thought that they 
were teaching the truth. It was not they that did the 
lying. It was God that did it. They were as honest 
as were the prophets who were opposed to Ahab. AW 
were equally God's instruments. Those prophets were 
themselves thoroughly deceived by the inspiration of 
this lie-loving God, in whom, like my opponents, they 
implicitly and blindly trusted. From all of this, is it 
not clear that this God — the adopted God of my oppo- 
nents — was once accustomed to resort to lying when- 
ever it suited his purposes to do so? And have we 
any proof that he has ever abandoned this monstrous 
practice? If he has abandoned it, when did he do so, 
and who induced him to do so? If he has not aban- 
doned it, is he not a lying God still ? In any view of 



68 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS 

the case, he either lied, as the story says he did to Aliab, 
or else inspired the writer of the story to write a iie. It 
is utterly impossible for my opponents to avoid arriving 
at one or the other of these conclusions. No matter 
at which one of them they arrive, however, they inev- 
itably place their God before us convicted of delib- 
erate, wilful, and malicious lying; and, in doing this, 
they undeniably place themselves before us convicted 
of the most horrible and uncalled-for blasphemy. 

From these same passages we also learn several 
other important facts. From the fact that he was 
seen, we learn that God was a visible object, and, con- 
sequently, a material one. From the fact that he was 
sitting, and from the fact that no one can sit without a 
body to sit with, we learn that he had a body. From 
the fact that he had a throne, we learn that he 
preferred a monarchical to a republican form of gov- 
ernment. From the fact that hosts were seen "stand- 
ing on his right hand, and on his left," we learn that he 
had hands, and that he was limited in his own extent 
— so much so that the beholder could see from side to 
-side of him at one view. From the fact that he spoke, 
we learn that he had organs of speech. He could not 
possibly have spoken without them. From the fact 
that he heard, we learn that he had organs of hear, 
ing. From the fact that he thought, we learn that he 
had organs of thought. From the fact that he had to 
inquire what the heavenly liar in question proposed to 
do, we learn that he was limited in his own knowl- 
edge. From the fact that, in order to o\ercome a poor 
feeble mortal, he was compelled to resort to lying, we 
learn that he was limited in his own power. From 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 69 

the fact that, in order to accomplish the murder of 
several of bis own children, he did resort to lying, we 
learn that he was wofully wanting in his own good- 
ness. From the fact that he had a hard-faced profes- 
sional liar in heaven with him, we learn that such liars go 
to heaven when they die. What a cheering thought 
this must be to many of my opponents ! From the 
fact that he preferred the plan proposed by this liar to 
any of the plans proposed by any of his more honest 
worshipers, we learn that liars have more influence with 
him than have more honest persons. What a cheerful 
thought this must also be to many of my opponents ! 
From the same fact we also learn that he preferred to 
accomplish his difficult undertakings by means of 
lying rather than by any more honorable means. In- 
deed, from the fact that he did not call for any plan 
except one by which Ahab could be enticed or de- 
ceived out of his stronghold, we learn that from the 
very first, he proposed to deal in deception alone. 
And, finally, from the fact that, in this whole affair, 
he acted just as a mean, cowardly, treacherous, and 
bloodthirsty man would be likely to act under similar 
circumstances, we learn that, in his character, he re- 
sembled a mean, cowardly, treacherous, and blood- 
thirsty man; and that unless he has undergone a great 
change for the better — a change which my opponents 
do not claim for him — he still resembles such a man. 
I am aware that these are all hard and blasphemous 
conclusions, I defy my opponents, however, by fair 
and logical arguments, based upon the hard and blas- 
phemous scriptures in question, to arrive at any other. 
I deny the whole blasphemous story. 



70 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

"Then said I, Ah, Lord God! surely thou hast 
greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying. 
Ye shall have peace; whereas, the sword reacheth 
unto the soul" (Jer. iv, 10). Had the Lord thus 
"greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem," or did 
he simply inspire Jeremiah to write a lie concerning 
the matter? He must have done the one or the other; 
and, in either case, was he not guilty of lying? "O 
Lord," says Jeremiah again, " thou hast deceived me, 
and I was deceived " (Jer. xx, 7). Had the Lord thus 
deceived Jeremiah, or did he again simply inspire that 
lachrymose old prophet to write a lie in regard to the 
matter? He certainly must have done the one or the 
other; and, in either case, does he not again stand be- 
fore us convicted of lying? Jeremiah, who seems to 
have been a really honest man, evidently looked upon 
this Lord God with a great deal of suspicion, and with 
very little reverence. At another time, in language 
far more forcible and familiar than reverential and 
polite, he called this mendaciously-inclined Lord God 
to account as follows: "Wilt thou be altogether unto 
me as a liar" (Jer. xv, 18)? At still another time, he 
exhorted this same Lord God to refrain from disgrace- 
ful conduct, to keep his sworn promises like a gentle- 
man, and to try to be a respectable God. " Do not 
abhor us, for thy name's sake, do not disgrace the 
throne of thy glory : remember, break not thy cov- 
enant with us " (Jer. xiv, Zl). Jeremiah evidently 
believed that, if left to himself, this Lord God, or 
Chief God, as the expression implies, was in a fairway 
to become "altogether . . . as a liar.' 1 He also 
evidently believed that, if not dissuaded from so do- 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 71 

ing, he would "disgrace the throne'' of his "glory," 
"break " his "covenants," and do other acts unworthy 
of a God, or even of a gentleman. In declaring that 
all these descriptions, so dishonorable to God, are true, 
are not my opponents again undeniably guilty of blas- 
phemy ? 

"And if the prophet be deceived when he hath 
spoken a thing, I. the Lord, have deceived that 
prophet " (Ezek. xiv, 9). Of necessity, this language 
must be either true or false. If true, then God did 
occasionally deceive the prophets. If false, then, since 
"all scripture is given by inspiration of God,'' he cer- 
tainly did, on this occasion, inspire Ezekiel to write a 
lie. In either case, what kind of a being is he, what 
kind of a book is the Bible, and what kind of men are 
my opponents? 

From the first chapter of Exodus, we learn that 
God rewarded two midwives, Shiprah and Puah, for 
lying to Pharaoh concerning the births of Hebrew in- 
fants. From several succeeding chapters, we learn 
that he also instructed Moses to lie to Pharaoh, by 
telling him that the Hebrews simply wished to go 
out a three days' journey, to hold a kind of religious 
festival or camp-meeting, whereas they really meant 
to run entirely away and never come back at all. We 
learn, too, that he instructed Moses to lie to Pharoah, 
also, in regard to the "jewels of silver, and jewels of 
gold, and raiment," which the Hebrews were to pre- 
tend to borrow of the Egyptians, but which they were 
in reality to carry with them when they fled from the 
country. We learn, further, that God promised Moses 
to assist him in so deceiving the Egyptians that they 



72 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

would "lend " all their valuables to the treacherous 
Hebrews. "And I will give this people favor in the 
sight of the Egyptians : and it shall come to pass that> 
when ye go, ye shall not go empty : but every woman 
shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourn- 
eth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, 
and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, 
and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the 
Egyptians" (Ex. iii, 21, 22). Faithfully following the 
instructions of this monstrously dishonest God, whom 
he himself doubtless made, or helped to make, Moses 
did "spoil the Egyptians," who kindly loaned all their 
valuables to their treacherous Hebrew friends and 
neighbors, fully expecting that within a few davs all 
these things would be faithfully returned. And now. 
let me ask, if God was unwilling to supply his people 
with such things as he wished them to have, in an 
honorable way, was he not wofully wanting in good- 
ness? If he was unable to supply them with these 
things by fair and honorable means, was he not wofully 
wanting in power? Is not the fact, then, that he did 
not supply them with these things by fair and honor- 
able means, proof positive that he was wofully want- 
ing either in goodness, or in power, or in both? In 
making this admission, however, do you not slander 
him, and deny his attributes, all of which are infinite? 
And are you not, then, guilty of blasphemy ? Do you 
really believe that the infinite power that rules the 
universe ever did thus select one small tribe of semi- 
barbarians to be its "peculiar people," and that it ever 
did thus instruct and aid them to deceive and to rob 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 73 

other men ? Can your dishonest God of the Bible be 
the true God — the God of nature? 

From the second chapter of Joshua, we learn that 
God rewarded a certain woman by the name of Rahab 
for lying to her neighbors, the inhabitants of Jericho, 
concerning the Hebrew spies whom she was then con- 
cealing in her house. This woman was a harlot, or 
common prostitute, and this fact probably explains 
why it was that God was so good to her, and also why 
it was that during their stay in Jericho, his messen- 
gers made her house their resting-place. ''Birds of a 
feather," etc. 

When God wished Samuel to go to Bethlehem to 
anoint David king of Israel, in place of Saul, w r ho, by 
an act of humanity shown to a captured king, had 
offended God, Samuel was afraid to go lest Saul shouid 
kill him. God, therefore, instructed Samuel to go 
with a base lie in his mouth, to take with him a heifer, 
and to falsely and treacherously swear that he had 
come for no other purpose than to offer a sacrifice to 
the Lord. Samuel, of course, swore to the required 
lie, and thus exemplified the baleful influence which 
this mendacious and immoral God has always exer- 
cised upon the moral characters of his worshipers. 
These facts we learn from 1 Sam. xvi, 1-5. 



74 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 



LECTU RE THIRD. 

Id the eighth and ninth chapters of Romans, we find 
the following passages : " For whom he did foreknow, 
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image 
of his son, that he might be the first-born among many 
brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them 
he also called : and whom he called, them he also jus- 
tified : and whom he justified, them he also glorified. 
. . . For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even 
for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I 
might show my power in thee, and that my name 
might be declared throughout all the earth. [What 
an inordinate craver he was of notoriety !] There- 
fore, hath he mercy [not on those who deserve it, but, 
without any regard to merit] on whom he will have 
mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth. . . . Hath 
not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump 
to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dis- 
honor? What if God, willing to show his wrath [to 
whom and against whom does he wish to show his 
wrath? And how came he by this unreasonable 
wrath ? Should the potter indulge in wrath against 
his own vessels for being just what he himself made 
them — just what he himself wished them to be?], and 
to make his power known, endured with much long 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 75 

suffering the vessels of wrath [made such by himself, 
without their having had anything at all to do in the 
matter] fitted to destruction : And that he might make 
known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy 
[made such by himself, without their having had any- 
thing at all to do in the matter], which he had afore 
prepared unto glory, even us [How unanimously all 
theologians believe themselves to be " vessels of 
mercy." their neighbors to be "vessels of wrath!"], 
whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also 
of the gentiles." In Eph. i, 4, Paul, also, to the same 
effect, says: "According as he hath chosen us in him, 
before the foundation of the world, that we should be 
holy and without blame before him in love." Why 
11 we " rather than anybody else ? So also in 2 Thess. 
ii, 13: "But we are bound to give thanks always to 
God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because 
God hath from the beginning [by the most atrocious 
partiality] chosen you to salvation, through sanctifica- 
tion of the spirit, and belief of the [falsely so-called] 
truth." 

From these, and from a vast number of other sim- 
ilar passages, we learn that, "before the foundation 
of the world," God, by the most inexcusable partiality, 
unchangeably predestinated a certain small portion of 
the human race to eternal salvation, and all the bal- 
ance to eternal damnation. We also learn that he ex- 
erts upon all men an influence so irresistible that not 
an individual of them can possibly escape the destiny, 
whether good or bad, to which he has been thus eter- 
nally predestinated. We also learn that, by these 
same irresistible influences. God causes evcrv individ- 



76 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

ual to seem to deserve, and to be fitted for, the destiny, 
whatever it maybe, to which he has thus been eternal iy 
predestinated. We learn, further, that to those whom 
he has already unchangeably predestinated to salva- 
tion — to those who, therefore, could not possibly fail 
to attain salvation any way — he gives power to believe 
certain absurd doctrines, such as that a certain child 
was begotten by the shadow of a ghost, that a certain 
God is his own father and his own son, that three dis- 
tinct gods are only one single God, etc ; and that, 
although he has thus already unchangeably predes- 
tinated them to salvation any way, he then falsely pre- 
tends that he saves them simply because of their belief 
in these absurd doctrines, a belief with which he him- 
self fills them, and which, consequently, involves no 
merit on their own part; and that he thus makes them 
seem to merit the salvation to which he has predes- 
tinated them, and, by their woful want of common 
sense, to be well fitted for that salvation. We learn 
still further, that, from those whom he has already 
unchangeably predestinated to certain damnation anv 
way, he either withholds all power to believe these ab- 
surd doctrines, and then falsely pretends that he damns 
them simply because of their unbelief, or else man- 
ufactures for them a lie, irresistibly deludes them into 
believing it, and then falsely pretends that he damns 
them simply because they have believed it All of 
this is abominably partial and unfair, as well as mon- 
strously unjust and cruel to those who are damned. 
Since, like mere machines, those who are predestinated 
to salvation are simply made to believe the absurd 
doctrines in question, their faith in these doctrines can 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. j i 

not possibly involve any merit on their own part. S<> ? 
on the other hand, the unbelief in these absurd doc- 
trines, on the part of a portion of those who are pre- 
destinated to damnation, and the belief on the part of 
the balance of them in a God-prepared lie, cannot pos- 
sibly involve any demerit on the part of the respective 
subjects of them, since, like mere machines, these two 
classes of persons are, by God's almighty power, simply 
made to be just what they are. It would be just as 
reasonable and fair for God to damn us for not flying, 
when he lias given us no wings to fly with, as it is for 
him to damn as for not believing certain absurdities, 
when he has given us no bump of credulity to believe 
them with. We would all gladly fly, if we could; 
and, if we could, we would all just as gladly believe 
all that it is really necessary for us to believe in order 
to attain salvation. So of those who, by the almighty 
power of God himself, are made to believe a lie. It 
would be just as reasonable and fair for God to make 
them blind, and then damn them for being so, as it is 
for him to make them believe a lie, and then damn 
them because they do believe it. Why does he toot 
damn us poor " non-elect : ' all at once, according to his 
unchangeable and horribly cruel prelestination, with- 
out all this silly effort to make us seem to merit this 
monstrously unjust doom? Since we cannot possibly 
be saved, why tantalize us with false hopes of salva- 
tion? Why tantalize the starving man with the sight 
of food which you know that he can never touch ? 
Why insult us by urging us to love and serve a hide- 
ous monster, who, " before the foundation of the 
world "—before we could possibly have been guilty 



'<» THE REAL RLASPHEMERS. 

of any offense whatever — cruelly doomed us to writhe 
and scream for ever and ever in the unutterable tor- 
ments of "fire and brimstone?" Will God, think 
you, ever give "saving faith" to any one whom h^ 
has thus unchangeably doomed to damnation? If not^ 
why insult such a man by calling upon him to believe ? 

But does God, you ask, make certain persons believe 
a lie? Paul says that he does, and that he makes 
their unbelief, thus forced upon them, an excuse for 
inflicting upon them the damnation to which, from all 
eternity, he had unchangeably predestinated them, and 
which consequently, they would inevitably have had 
to endure all the same if this pretended excuse had 
never been invented. "And for this cause God shall 
send them strong delusion, that they should believe a 
lie [and this he will do expressly in order] that they all 
might be damned " (2 Thess. ii, 11, 12). This makes 
the case a very clear one, and, at the same time, makes 
God a hideous fiend, a thousand times worse than the 
devil. 

In order that these infinite^ injured people may 
"believe a lie," it is absolutely necessary that a suita- 
ble lie be furnished them to believe. Without a lie to 
believe, they could never be led by the "strong del i- 
sion " in question to "believe a lie." But who is to 
furnish them the necessary lie? Who, except God 
himself, possibly could furnish it? Who else fore- 
knew that there was ever to be any such lie, and that 
it was ever to be believed ? And could he have possi- 
bly foreknown that these things certainly would be, 
unless he had himself unchangeably predetermined 
that they certainly should be? Since, from " before 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 79 

the foundation of the world," the elect — -"the vessels 
of mercy," as they are sometimes called — were infalli- 
bly predestinated to salvation — since, millions of ages 
before they were born, God made it utterly impossible 
for them not to attain salvation — since their salvation 
does not in any way depend upon themselves, it evi- 
dently cannot possibly involve any merit on their own 
part. And so, too, of the non-elect — " the vessels of 
wrath," as they are sometimes called. Since, millions 
of ages before they were born, the dire doom of dam- 
nation was unchangeably fixed upon them, that doom 
evidently does not depend upon anything demerito- 
rious in themselves While writhing for ever and ever 
in the unutterable torments of fire and brimstone, sim- 
ply because God made them expressly for this occupa- 
tion, and rendered it utterly impossible for them to en- 
gage in any other, these persons may be just as good, just 
as worthy of eternal happiness as are any of those who, 
for similar reasons, are tooting on penny-trumpets, or 
playing on golden harps in heaven. Indeed, judging 
from the crowds that I now see heading heavenwards, 
I am free to say that, for the best society, I would 
much rather risk the other place. 

I have heard certain champions of the Bible attempt 
to justify God's atrocious act of thus damning these 
unfortunate persons millions of ages in advance of 
their creation, by claiming that he damned them on 
account of the sins which he foresaw that they would 
commit after they were created. This, however, is 
not the teaching of the Bible. It plainly teaches that 
he made them expressly for damnation, just as a 
potter makes certain vessels expressly for dishonorable 



80 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

uses; and it teaches that he had just as good a right 
to do this, and to include in his cruel decree of damna- 
tion millions of infants not a span long that were to 
die before birth — before they could sin at all — as the 
potter has to make, for dishonorable uses, certain ves- 
sels that never have been, and never can be, guilty of 
any offense whatever. Besides this, how could God 
have possibly foreseen that certain sins would be com- 
mitted, millions of ages in the future, by certain per- 
sons, predetermined by him to be then created, unless 
he himself, at the same time that he predetermined 
their creation, also predetermined that they inevitably 
should be guilty of those very sins. If those persons 
possibly could have avoided committing the offenses 
that God foresaw that they certainly were to commit 
they probably would have avoided committing them. 
In that case, however, the events that he thought he 
foresaw as certainly occurring, would never have oc- 
curred at all, and his pretended fore-knowledge would 
have reduced to extremely poor guess-work. Must he 
not, then, of absolute necessity, have predetermined 
the acts and the characters of all men just as much as 
he predetermined their existence and their final destiny? 
Is it not an undeniable fact that if there be a personal 
God at all, whoever ultimately lands in hell does so 
simply because this God has made him expressly for 
that particular destiny, and has made it utterly impos- 
sible for him to attain any other ? As I have already 
said, this makes God a thousand times worse than the 
devil was ever represented to be, since it makes God, 
who could do otherwise, spend a great portion of his 
time making men for the express purpose of seeing 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 81 

them writhe for ever and ever in the unutterable tor- 
ments of fire and brimstone, while the devil, who 
could not do otherwise if he so desired, and who is 
himself also helplessly suffering these same terrible 
torments, simply receives those whom God makes for 
him and forwards to his fearfully fiery dominions. 
Would any but the foulest of all fiends make men 
thus for the express purpose of damning them? 
"Would any but the foulest of all fiends make men at 
all if he knew that they would suffer eternal torments 
if made, or if he knew that there was even the remot- 
est chance for them to thus suffer? The doctrine in 
question is undeniably the most blasphemous one ever 
taught among men ; and yet there is no doctrine more 
clearly taught in the Bible. So long, therefore, as the 
Bible continues to be accepted as conclusive authority 
in regard to such matters, my Presbyterian friends, 
and others who advocate this horribly blasphemous 
doctrine, need have no fear that it can ever be over- 
thrown. 

But who, you may ask, are those unfortunate per- 
sons whom God is thus, " by strong delusions," so 
shamefully and so irresistibly leading to ''believe a 
he that they might all be damned ? " So far as my 
subject is concerned, I might omit an}' notice of this 
question at all. I am dealing with the deluder. not 
the deluded — with the damner, not the damned ; and 
no matter who the victims of this God-sent delusion 
and of this God-invented lie may be, the sender of the 
delusion, the inventor of the lie, the author of the 
damnation, remains the same. In any case, these vic- 
tims, whoever they may be, undeniably receive at the 



82 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS 

hands of God — the God that you either blindly or 
wickedly worship — an infinite wrong; and he undenia- 
bly stauds convicted of an infinite wrong-doing. Since 
you desire me to do so, however, I will make it as 
clear to you as possible who these victims really are. 
In the first place, then, what assurance have my oppo- 
nents that they are not themselves the very parties 
that are being thus deluded, and thus booked for eter- 
nal damnation ? Would it not be just as fair and just 
as proper for God to thus " send them strong delusion 
that they should believe a lie: that they all might be 
damned, ' as it would be for him to thus delude anybody 
else into believing the same lie for the same purpose ? 
Indeed, by reading the whole chapter from which I 
have quoted, you will clearly perceive that the lan- 
guage in question cannot possibly be applied, as my 
opponencs would all like to apply it, to Infidels and 
other non-professors of religion. These parties, and 
especially the Infidels, are all to be damned, it is true, 
but, as we elsewhere learn, their damnation is to be 
administered to them ostensibly because they have not 
believed anything at all, and not, like that of the par- 
ties whose case is now under consideration, because 
they have believed a lie. Paul clearly describes the 
parties, to whom he applies the fearful language in 
question, as sitting in the temple of God, claiming to 
be the people of God, and arrogating to themselves 
many of the powers and prerogatives of God. He de- 
scribes them further as a portion of the Christian 
church, who are to fall away from that church, and to 
corrupt themselves by the rejection of true doctrines 
and the adoption of false ones, and by the indulgence 



TIIE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 83 

of wicked practices; but who, nevertheless, are to 
claim to be the true church, and who are really to be 
loud-mouthed, arrogant, and intolerant professors of 
religion. 

From this, you perceive that these unfortunate vic- 
tims of God's " strong delusion,' 1 must, of necessity, 
constitute some church organization, and this lets off the 1 
Infidels and all other non-professors of religion. All 
theologians admit this fact, and differ in opinion only 
when they attempt to fix upon the particular sect or 
division of the church that is being tnus so scandal- 
ously deluded and damned. They all regard it as a 
truly glorious thing for any other sect to be thus 
treacherously tricked into damnation, but, for obvious 
reasons, none of them desire themselves to undergo 
these interesting and glorious operations. 

Since Paul describes the falling away in question as 
a very great one, threatening the very existence of the 
church, theologians all agree that it will not do to fix 
upon some small and obscure sub-sects, such as the 
Mormons, Millerites, etc. They all agree that the de- 
scription cannot be filled by anything less than the 
entire Catholic or the entire Protestant division of the 
Christian church. As a matter of course, therefore, 
the Catholics, for the love of God, boldly claim, and, 
indeed, quite clearly prove, that the Protestants cor- 
respond exactly to the description given by Paul of 
those who were to fall away from the church, and who 
were then to be so atrociously tricked and damned by 
the God whom they professed to serve. On the other 
hand, equally as a matter of course, and equally for 
the love of God, the Protestants return this truly char- 



S4 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 



acteristie Christian compliment, by just as boldly 
claiming and just as clearly proving the very same 
things in regard to the Catholics. As to myself, I sus- 
pect that both parties are correct. I am certain that 
both parties have been deluded into believing a lie — 
in fact, into believing many lies — and the damnation, 
I suppose, will follow as a matter of course. Should 
my views of the case prove to be correct, then we will 
all be damned together; some of us for what we do 
believe, and the balance for what we do not believe. 
In any view of the case, those who escape damnation 
are bound to be "few and far between " — too few, by 
far, to keep the weeds down in the streets of the New 
Jerusalem. Since God is thus confessedly a deluder 
or deceiver, no one can be at all sure that his own re- 
ligious faith is not a "strong delusion " sent upon him 
by God as a pretext for damning him. In view of all 
these things, then, let us all, Christians and Infidels, 
prepare to be damned. 

In the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel, God declares 
that, for a pretext to render his chosen people u des- 
olate," he gave them "statutes that were not good, 
and judgments whereby they should not live.'" He 
also declares that he >; polluted them," and caused them 
to burn their own children as sacrifices to him upon 
altars. To thus assert, as my opponents do, that the 
infinite sum cf all the forces eternally inherent in 
nature ever did do such things as these, is to assert 
something so supremely absurd, and so monstrously 
blasphemous, that it requires no further notice. 

In Jon. iii, 10, we read : " If so be they will hearken ; 
and turn every man from his evil way that I may re- 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. fro 

pent me of the evil which I purpose to do unto them 
[why?], because of the evil of their doings." Here we 
have God represented as being in doubt as to whether 
the people of whom he was wspeaking would, or would 
not, " hearken, and turn every man from his evil way ;" 
and this doubt on his part in regard to this matter is 
prima facie evidence that he was not. as my opponents 
declare that he always was, and that he still is, infinite 
in knowledge. It is prima facie evidence that, in re- 
gard to his knowledge, he was, on the contrary, not at 
all superior to a man of ordinary intelligence. He 
proposed to "repent," provided those people would re- 
pent first; and he proposed to do evil, because they 
had already done evil. From this, we learn that, in 
his actions, he was controlled not by infinite wisdom 
and infinite goodness, but by the actions of the igno- 
rant, superstitious, and wicked men of a pagan city. 
Did he not, in repenting, display a purely human 
weakness? and in proposing to do evil simply because 
the men of that city had done evil, did he not display 
a base human motive and a woful want of goodness? 
And, in thus charging him with all these things, so 
derogatory to the character of a God, are not my op- 
ponents again undeniably guilty of a monstrous act of 
blasphemy? 

From the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, we 
learn that, in one of the sudden fits of jealousy to 
which he is said to have been extremely subject, God 
worked himself up to an uncontrollable fury, and 
then declared that, without any distinction of age, sex 
or condition, he would mercilessly destroy all, except 
Moses, of his entire nation of chosen people whom he 



86 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

had so often and so solemnly sworn to protect. When, 
however, his special favorite, adviser, and manager. 
Moses, who, by an unaccountably strange coincidence, 
was always present, and was always the only one pres- 
ent, on all the occasions of these fits, had reasoned 
with him in regard to this matter, and had shown him 
the disgraceful nature of his proposed course of con- 
duct — the unpopularity which by that course he would 
bring upon himself — he concluded to break his word, 
and to back down from this his proposed wholesale 
slaughter of his people. As we learn in another place, 
however, he did not back down because of the enor- 
mity of his proposed crime. Of that enormity he 
seemed to be totally unconscious, or utterly callous. 
He backed down simply from fear — from fear that, if 
he should commit the atrocious crime proposed, his 
enemies would make fun of him, and claim that he 
had killed his people simply because he was unable to 
govern them, or claim that they themselves had done 
this killing. The following is his own version of the 
affair : " I said I would scatter them into corners, I 
would make the remembrance of them to cease from 
among men [and I would have gone on and accom- 
plished this threat], were it not that I feared the wrath 
of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave 
themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our 
hand is high and the Lord hath not done this" (Deut. 
xxxii, 26, 27). From this it is evident that, if he 
could have been sure that he should himself receive 
the supposed honor of the proposed crime, he would 
certainly have gone on and committed it I do not 
know which was the more abominable, the atrocious 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 87 

crime which he proposed to commit, or the despicable 
cowardice which alone prevented him from committing 
it. Were I, like my opponents, to thus charge God 
with being both a criminal and a coward, I would not, 
like them, after having been guilty of this horrible 
blasphemy, continue to worship him. 

On various other occasions, when in similar fits of 
jealousy and fury, he declared, in the most positive 
manner, that he would utterly destroy all of these his 
peculiar rascals, and choose an entirely new set. On 
every one of these occasions, however, Moses, who, as 
I have already said, always happened to be present on 
all of these occasions — who seems, moreover, to have 
been the greatest rascal of the whole band, and to 
have been at all times mare than a match for God in 
argument — succeeded in shaming him out of his pro- 
posed vengeance. This he did by representing to him 
what his enemies would say of conduct so inexpressibly 
atrocious. And, in thus charging God with being a 
scandalously jealous and ferocious person, a weak rea- 
soner, a moral coward, a promise breaker, etc., are not 
my opponents again guilty of blasphemy? 

In the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel, God refers to 
these events, and again declares that it was only from 
fear of being disgraced in the eyes of his enemies — he 
had no friends — that lie backed down from executing 
his oft- repeated and unconditional threat to destroy 
his rebellious and rascally people. He then goes on 
to say that, being thus afraid to execute this threat, he 
had sworn to take vengeance on his people in some 
other way. He also informs us that, in order to have 
a pretext for what he proposed to do to them,, he had 



88 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

himself caused them to commit many very wicked acts. 
"Wherefore," says he, "I gave them also statutes that 
were not good, and judgments whereby they should 
not live; and I polluted them in their own gifts [to 
him], in that they caused to pass through the fire [as 
burnt-offerings to himself] all that openeth the womb 
[all their first-born children], that I might make them 
desolate, to the end that they might know that I am 
the Lord " (E/.ek. xx, 25, 26). Was not this a rather 
strange method by which to convince them that he 
was the Lord? Could he not have convinced them 
of this fact — if it was a fact — in a less cruel way? 

In Ex. xxxiii, 3, we read : " For I will not go up in 
the midst of thee: for thou art a stiff-necked people: 
lest I consume thee in the way." Here God is repre- 
sented not only as being limited in his presence, but 
also as being afraid to trust himself in the company of 
his chosen people — afraid lest, in one of his frequent 
fits of fearful fury, he might entirely lose control of 
himself and murder them all. I do not know which 
was the more to be pitied, this poor insane God, or the 
unfortunate people who were thus constantly exposed 
to his insane fury. ''Therefore, he said that he would 
destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before 
him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, Jest he 
should destroy them" (Ps. cvi, 28). Here this poor, 
passionate, and inefficient God is represented as very 
frankly admitting that he was entirely under the con- 
trol — that he was, in fact, the mere instrument — of his 
chief favorite, Moses. And are not such representa- 
tions highly blasphemous? 

" And I sought for a man among them, that should 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. S9 

make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for 
the land, that I should not dostroy it : but I found 
none. Therefore, have I poured out my indignation 
upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of 
my wrath " (Ezek. xxii, 30, 31). From this, it is clear 
that, in his frequent fits of frantic fury, this unfortu- 
nate and ill gotten-up God lost all power of self-control; 
that, in his lucid intervals, he did not really wish to 
destroy the people in question ; and that, in order to 
save them from his own fury when his next fit should 
come on, he tried hard to find some one to play Moses 
with him — to coax him like a spoiled child not to be 
naughty; but that, not finding anyone to play this 
role, he actually had committed the horrible deed 
which he mentions, and which he had so earnestly 
hoped that some man more powerful than himself 
would prevent him from committing. Poor insane 
God 1 Why did priests ever make him so? What a 
monstrous character his own blasphemous inspired 
writers gave him ! With such a God, who would ex- 
change places ? 

In all these cases, God is clearly represented as being 
subject to uncontrollable fits of anger, jealousy, fury, 
fear, etc. — all of them the lowest, the most animal, of 
the human passions — and as saying and doing things 
far worse than were ever said or done by the most 
despicable of human tyrants. Notwithstanding all 
this, however, Moses, according to his own account, 
could, at all times and under all circumstances, lead, 
as it were by the nose, this fearfully furious God hither 
and thither at pleasure, and, with the utmost ease, van- 
quish him in every argument And now, let me ask, 



90 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

could any man thus completely control the action of 
the Supreme Ruler of the Universe — the only true 
God — the illimitable and inconceivably glorious power 
that sustains, in all their unspeakably sublime revolu- 
tions, the billions of billions of mighty worlds and 
systems of worlds that crowd every portion of infinite 
space? And dare my opponents deliberately commit 
the horrible blasphemy of charging that this infinitely 
mighty and glorious power — this only true God — ever 
does thus go into uncontrollable fits of anger, jealousy, 
fury, fear, etc., and that it ever does take walks, re- 
gale itself on roast meats, suffer defeat in argument 
from men, break its solemn promises, repent of what 
it has done, commit murder, show its back parts, etc. ? 
Who, unless he be a fool that cannot reason, a coward 
that dare not reason, or a bigot that will not reason — 
who, I ask, that is a man, that can reason, that dare 
reason, and that does reason, will hesitate to answer 
that this infinitely great and glorious power (and what 
other true God is there ?) never does, and never did, 
do any of these things? What, then, is this old, an- 
gry, jealous, furious, bloodthirsty, treacherous, and 
cowardly, being — this man-controlled, beef-eating, 

promise-breaking, weak-reasoning, -showing God 

of the Bible, except an old priest-invented, priest - 
paying, soul-enslaving, pagan myth — a monstrous 
remnant of primitive superstition and ignorance? 

In Ezek. xxxix, 10, this same God says that his 
people "shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob 
those that robbed them." Being ostensibly performed 
by way of retaliation upon open enemies, this form of 
robbery was not so bad as was the so-called borrowing 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 91 

affair by which God's people "spoiled the Egyptians." 
In a case like this, I, being an Infidel, and an old 
soldier, might, perhaps, be induced to do a little rob- 
bing myself. I trust, however, that my opponents, 
being good Christians, could not, under any circum- 
stances, be induced to do this. I further trust that no 
thought of popularity or of earthly gain has ever had 
anything to do with their being the worshipers of this 
notorious robber God. Be all this as it may, however, 
are they not guilty of blasphemy when they charge 
the true God — the infinite power that rules the uni- 
verse — with ever having thus authorized robbery 
at all? 

From a great number of passages, like the follow- 
ing, we learn that this monstrous God of the Bible 
was invented for the Hebrews alone; that he was 
never intended to be the God of any other people; 
and that, until he was adopted, or, rather, continued 
in use by the Christians, who, at first, were all He- 
brews, he never was the God of any other people. 
11 And I will establish my covenant between me and 
thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for 
an everlasting covenant; to be a God unto thee, and 
to thy seed after thee " (Gen. xvii, 7). From this, it is 
clear that it was only by a "covenant," or contract, 
that the party in question became the God of any peo- 
ple — of even the Hebrews. In consideration of such 
a "covenant," or contract, with the Hebrews, however, 
he speaks of himself, not in a general and unlimited 
mariner, as he would speak if he regarded himself as 
the only God there was, and as the God of all nations, 
but in a particular and limited manner, as he naturally 



92 THE REAL RLASPHEMEliS. 

would speak, if he believed himself to be only one of 
many gods, and as the God of the Hebrews alone. 
He does not speak of himself as God, but as "a god;" 
and since, as every grammarian knows, the limiting 
particle a means simply one, and since it is never ap- 
plied to any object unless there be other objects of the 
same kind, the expression "a god " means simply one 
of the gods. The matter, then, reduces to this : That 
one of the gods, of whom there were many, proposes 
to become, by special contract, a special God or pro- 
tector — a tutelary divinity — to a certain man to whom 
he has taken a fancy, and to his posterity. Indeed, as 
every Bible critic very well knows, the Hebrew word 
Elohirti, which is the first appellation of the deity to 
be found in the Bible, is a noun in the plural number, 
and signifies, not an individual God, but an assemblage } 
corporation, or congress of gods, composed of many, 
or, at least, of several individuals. At the start, all 
of these gods seem to have worked harmoniously to- 
gether as partners in the creation of all things. After 
a while, however, when men had become quite numer- 
ous, these gods seem to have dissolved their partner- 
ship — their Elohim, as they called it — and to have 
divided among the various members or stockholders 
of this company all of the company property, each in- 
dividual receiving as his share a certain tribe of men, 
and, also, in most instances, the lands occupied by 
those men. In this division, Baal, for his portion, 
chose the Assyrians, and the country which they in- 
habited. Chemosh chose the Ammonites, and their 
country; Jehovah the Hebrews, and whatever country 
he might be able to take for them. And so of all the 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 93 

other gods. Each of them became the tutelary divinity 
of a particular people to whom alone he devoted his 
entire attention, and whose entire devotion as worship- 
ers he claimed to himself alone. All of these gods 
were equally real, and were usually admitted to be so 
by one another's worshipers. Naturally enough, how- 
ever, each nation or people were wont to claim that, 
in some respect, their own particular God or tutelary 
divinity was superior to any of the other gods. Thus, 
while the Hebrews looked upon Baal, Chemosh, Mo- 
lech, and other tutelary divinities of the neighboring 
nations as equally real gods, and while they often 
worshiped them as such, they were, nevertheless, wont 
to arrogantly claim that their own tutelary divinity, 
Jehovah, was greatly superior to any of these other 
gods. They were wont to express this assumed, but 
by no means established, superiority of their own God, 
by calling him the "Lord Gjd," that is, the Lord, or 
chief of the gods — the head member of the Elohim, 
the "most high God," the "God of gods," etc. 

" And ye shall be my people, and I will be your 
God " (Jer. xxx, 22). " For thou an holy people [that 
is, a people exclusively set aside, consecrated, or df- 
voted, by contract] unto the Lord thy [no one else's] 
God, and the Lord hath chosen thee [and no one else] to 
be a peculiar people unto himself [and not to any 
other God], above all the nations that are upon the 
earth" (Deut. xiii, 2). "And ye shall be holy [that 
is, ye shall be by this contract confined in your worship 
exclusively] unto me: for I the Lord am holy [that is, 
by this contract. I am confined in all my dealings ex- 
clusively to you], and have severed } r ou from other 



94 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

people, that ye should be mine " (Lev. xx, 2fy The 
''other people," of course, were not intended to be his. 
and he did not pretend to claim them as his. Of right, 
they all belonged to other gods, to whom they had 
fallen, in the general division of which I have spoken, 
just as the Hebrews, who had fallen to him in that 
division, belonged, of right, to himself. And this 
light of the other gods, he seems to have been willing, 
on all occasions, to respect. He never required the 
people of any other God to worship himself; and he 
was always furiously jealous and angry whenever any 
of these gods invaded his equal rights by leading his 
people to worship themselves. 

All of the passages which I have just quoted were 
either spoken directly by this God of the Hebrews 
himself, if, indeed, he was a real being, or put into his 
mouth by his inventors, if he was not; and all of 
these passages, and many more like them, clearly indi- 
cate a covenant, or contract, by which the contracting 
parties, Jehovah, the chief or head God of the Elohim, 
on the one side, and the Hebrews on the other, mutu- 
ally bound themselves to be "holy" to each other — 
that is, to be, as far as use and ownership were con- 
cerned, exclusively each other's property. It is a fact 
well known to all critics that, in the primitive sense in 
which it is used in all of these passages, the word 
"holy " signifies exclusiveness alone. It does not at 
nil involve any idea of morality, purity, or any other 
virtue or form of goodness. It is only in compar- 
atively mcdern times that any idea of excellence has 
been attached to the word. By being exclusively de- 
voted to his service, a man could be just as "holy" to 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 95 

the devil as he could be to the Lord. As a matter of 
necessity, this contract of mutual holiness, or exclu- 
siveness, was just as binding upon one of the contract- 
ing parties as it was upon the other — just as binding 
upon the Lord as it was upon the Hebrews. If, then, 
by its provisions, the Hebrews were bound — as they 
certainly were — to confine themselves, in their capacity 
of worshipers, to this one God, he was certainly just 
as fully bound, by the same provisions, to confine him- 
self, in his capacity of the object worshiped, to this 
one people. Indeed, this mutual holiness, or exclu- 
siveness, to each other is clearly indicated in the lan- 
guage employed. God, you will notice, requires the 
Hebrews to be " holy " (wholly) or exclusive to him- 
self ; and, as an inducement to them to observe this 
exclusiveness, he informs them that he is thus "holy," 
or exclusive. It is true that he does not say to whom 
he is thus " holy," or exclusive, but the connection 
renders it impossible for him to mean anybody but the 
Hebrews. Had he meant to be the God of all nations, 
he would not have been ''holy " to any of them. By 
never becoming the God of any other people, he faith- 
fully kept his part of the covenant in question, and 
nothing enraged him so much as for the Hebrews, by 
turning their devotions to some other God, to break 
their part of it. 

"Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for 
I am married unto you" (Jer. iii, 14). "Behold, the 
days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new cov- 
enant with the house of Israel, and with the house of 
Judah. Not according to the covenant that 1 made 
with their fathers in the day that I took them by the 



96 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which 
my covenant they brake, although I was an husband 
unto them, saith the Lord " (Jer. xxxi, 31, 32). " More- 
over, thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters 
whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou 
sacrificed unto them [certain other gods of whom he 
was extremely jealous] to be devoured. Is this of thy 
whoredoms a small matter, That thou hast slain my 
children " (Ezek. xvi, 20, 21). From these, and from 
a vast number of other similar passages, we learn that 
the peculiar union into which God and the Hebrews 
entered with each other, was a marriage union, or. at 
least, in its mutual obligations, exactly similar to such 
union. And, from its very nature, was not this union 
bound to be equally binding upon both of the parties 
to it — equally binding upon God, the husband, and 
the Hebrews, the wife — to mutually forsake all others 
and to cleave unto each other alone? If it was whore- 
dom or adultery, as God always called it, for the He- 
brews, the wife, in this case, to have any love inter- 
course with any other god — such intercourse as is held 
between worshipers and the object worshiped — would 
it not have been equally whoredom or adultery for 
God, the husband, to have similar intercourse with 
any other people? Was the husband any less bound 
than was the wife? Had he any other wife? If he 
had, who was she? If he had not, was he not, unde- 
niably, the exclusive husband — God — the exclusive 
tutelary divinity of the Hebrews alone? If, then. 
there really be, as my opponents all declare that there 
is, at the present time, a love intercourse being carried 
on between this God. this husband of the Hebrews, 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 97 

and another female, the Christian church, does not 
that intercourse constitute a case of whoredom or 
adultery on the part of both the participants in it? 

From the fact that this husband God of the Hebrews 
believed that certain of his children had been " de- 
voured " by the other gods, just as he was himself 
wont to devour roast children, roast beef, etc., he cer- 
tainly must have believed that these gods were real 
living beings who, like himself, were capable of de- 
vouring or eating up roast children and other similar 
luxuries. And, from the fact that he was almost con- 
stantly in a towering rage of jealousj? because of the 
real or the suspected intimacy of his wife with some 
of these other gods; from the fact that he was almost 
constantly giving her "curtain lectures" against these 
gods, and accusing her, not with vainly trying to com- 
mit whoredom or adultery with them, but with act- 
ually having committed this crime with them, he cer- 
tainly must again have believed them to be, like him- 
self, real beings, real males with whom his wife actually 
could have committed, and actually had committed 
this crime. As it is utterly impossible for a man to 
become really jealous of that which he does not be- 
lieve to have any real existence," as it is utterly impos- 
sible for him to believe that his wife has actually 
committed whoredom or adultery without having had 
illicit sexual intercourse with a real man, or, at least, 
with a real male of some kind, so Grod could not possi hi y 
have been so jealous as he was, so certain as he was, 
that his wife had actually committed whoredom with 
these other gods, if he had not fully believed that 
they were real living beings, like himself, of the mas- 



98 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

culine gender. And was he, or was he not, correct in 
his belief ? If he was, then, of course, he was, and still 
is, only one of many similar gods, who may have been, 
and who may still be, his equals, or even his superiors, 
in every respect. If he was not, then, of course, in 
entertaining the erroneous opinions he did on this 
subject, he was certainly a very ignorant and super- 
stitious God, utterly unfit to be worshiped by intelli- 
gent men. In the former case, my opponents are 
guilty of lying when they teach, as they all do, that 
he is the only God that does now or that ever did 
exist. In the latter case, they are equally guilty of 
lying when they teach, as they all do, that he is now, 
and that he always has been, infinite in knowledge. 
In any possible view of the case, they are guilty of 
lying — guilty of lying, too, not for the glory of God, 
as Paul claimed that he lied, but to the great detri- 
ment of God's character. And does not such lying 
ngainst God constitute blasphemy ? 

If, in order to escape this unpleasant and otherwise 
utterly unavoidable dilemma, my opponents conclude 
to deny that God really did believe that his various 
and often successful rivals were real gods, how much 
better will they make the matter? Will they not 
make it worse? Will they not simply make their own 
God a huge idiot forever foaming with furious jealousy, 
jealousy of nothing at all; an atrocious monster for- 
ever insulting and abusing his wife, by falsely charg- 
ing her with having committed whoredom or adultery 
with Baal, Chemosh, Molech, the Great Jumping 
Jingo, or something else which lie does not believe 
has anv existence at all? Will ihcv not also make 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 99 

their own God a very feeble being, rarely ever able to 
cope in his wife's affections, or in anything else, with 
his rivals, these utter nonentities? And will they 
not, by this unavailing subterfuge, so derogatory to 
God's character, become again guilty of blasphemy? 

"Seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the 
God of Israel hath separated you from the congrega- 
tion of Israel?" (Num. xvi, 9). "For they call 
themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon 
the God of Israel : ' (Is. xlvii, 2). "So now the Lord 
God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites (another 
god's people) from before his people Israel, and 
shouldst thou possess it? Wilt thou not possess that 
which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So 
whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from 
before us, them will we possess " (Jud. xi, 23, 24). In 
all of these passages the "God of Israel " is mentioned, 
just as is the "congregation of Israel" in the first 
passage, as something entirely confined to Israel — as a 
personage who had no more claim upon the love, the 
allegiance, or the adoration of any other people than 
Chemosh or any other God had upon the love, the 
allegiance, or the adoration of his people, the Hebrews, 
and who never any more thought of giving lands or 
other possessions to the Amorites or any other for- 
eign nation than Chemosh or the god of any other 
foreign nation thought of giving lands or other pos- 
sessions to his people. In short, he is clearly spoken 
of as one who had no better claim to be regarded as 
the universal God of all nations than had Chemosh, the 
god of the Amorites, who is mentioned in exactly the 
same manner, and in the same sense. 



100 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

The last passage quoted was spoken by Jephtbah 
to the king of the Amorites. From this passage we 
learn that Jephthah, inspired though he was by his 
own 4 ' God of Israel," did not doubt that Chemosh 
was a real god, standing in exactly the same relation 
to his chosen people, the Amorites, as that in which 
the " God of Israel " stood to his chosen people, 
Israel. We learn, too, that, in Jephthah's opinion, 
Chemosh could and did just as ferujy give lands and 
other possessions to his people *s the il God of Israel" 
could and did give them to his. Indeed, as I have 
already said, ev^ry nation was supposed to have its 
own peculiar or exclusive tutelary divinity. All of 
these divinities were supposed to be equally real gods, 
but possessed of different degrees of power, intelli- 
gence, etc., each nation very naturally holding that 
their own God was superior to any of the others. The 
God that you now worship was only one of many similar 
gods: and, in choosing him, or, rather, in having him 
forced upon your ancestors, you did no better, per- 
haps, than you would have done had Baal, Chemosh, 
Molech, Apis, Juggernaut, or any other prominent 
god been thus chosen by you, or thus forced upon your 
ancestors. Indeed, I doubt whether you did as well. 
As given in the Bible, your God's record is rather 
worse than that of any other god of whom I have any 
knowledge. If you know of any other god with a 
worse record, what god is it, and in what respect is 
this record worse? Besides this, since the marriage 
union of this God and the Jewish church or nation 
was to be " forever," he is evidently still her husband 
and she is evidently still his wife. Will you please 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 10 L 

inform us, then, in what relation your church stands 
to this wife's husband ? In her love-intercourse with 
him. does she stand in the relation of a polygamous 
wife No. 2, or simply in that of a harlot defiling the 
wife's bed? According to your own teachings, she is 
bound to stand to him in one or the other of these 
relations. In view of all these facts, are not my 
opponents guilty of blasphemy in reducing the true 
God, the infinite power that rules the universe, to this 
little, furious, jealous, beef-eating God, married to one 
small nation, and a cruel and treacherous enemy to all 
other nations ? 

"Thoushalt not suffer a. witch to live " (Ex. xxii 
18). Here we have a law, founded upon what we now 
know to be a very gross superstition, and yet profess- 
ing to come directly from God — a law that has caused 
hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and 
children to be put to death by the most cruel of all 
known tortures, a law that has often brought mourning 
and terror to nearly every family circle in all Christen- 
dom, a law that still binds to a worse than slavish 
superstition the minds of a great majority of all the 
believers in the Bible throughout the world. But 
does the true God, the infinite but unconscious sum of 
all the forces that exist in the universe, really believe 
thus in the existence of witches, and does it delight 
to see hundreds of thousands of innocent men, 
women, and children thus cruelly tortured to death 
for being witches — witches, too, which it must itself 
have made ? In charging this infinite force, this great 
and glorious God, with superstition so degrading and 
cruelty so monstrous, are not my opponents again 



102 THE KEAL BLASPHEMERS. 

guilty of blasphemy ? The following passages, all 
bearing upon the same matter, require no additional 
comment: U A man also, or a woman that hath a 
familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put 
to death ; they shall stone them with stones [with 
what else could they stone them?]; their blood shall 
be upon them " [upon whom ?] (Lev. xx, 27). M And 
he [Manasseh] . . . observed times and used enchant- 
ments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar 
spirit, and with wizards ; he wrought much evil in the 
sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger " (2 Chron., 
xxxiii. 6). The God of the Bible, you perceive, is 
here clearly represented as fully believing in the actual 
existence of familiar spirits, enchantments, witches 
wizards, etc ; as fully believing that he himself, as the 
maker of all things, had made these things. You per- 
ceive that he is clearly represented as fully believing 
that Manasseh actually had dealt with all of these 
things, and not that he had. merely tried or pretended 
to deal with them. Was the true God ever thus sunk 
in superstitions so degrading? 

The lowest form of idolatry ever known to have 
been practiced by men is that which is called fetich- 
ism, and which consists in ascribing deific power 
and intelligence to certain natural but inanimate 
objects, such as stones, plants, drugs, decoctions of 
certain roots and leaves, dead men's hair, etc. This 
extremely degrading form of idolatry still prevails 
among some of the lowest tribes of Africa, who depend 
almost entirely upon it, in some of its forms, to charm 
away or keep off diseases, evil spirits, witches, etc., 
and to discover the perpetrators of crimes. When 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 103 

used for this last purpose, it is usually in the form of 
a very virulent poison, and is taken into the stomach 
by the party who is undergoing trial. If he be guilty, 
which seems to be nearly always the case, the deific 
drug or fetich is supposed to discover that fact the 
moment it reaches his stomach, and to proceed at once 
to kill him because of his guilt, If, however, on the 
contrary, he be innocent, which seems rarely ever to 
be the case, the fetich discovers this fact also, and 
simply causes him to vomit forth the contents of his 
stomach and live. Low and cruel as is this form of 
fetichism, my opponents boldly charge their God with 
being a believer in it. and with having given many 
laws and instructions in regard to its practice. Accord- 
ing to their teachings, lie was once so completely a 
slave to this most degrading and hurtful of all super- 
stitions, that he depended entirely upon its efficacy to 
discover the guilt or innocence of married women who 
happened to be so unfortunate as to be cursed with 
jealous husbands. From the fifth chapter of Num- 
bers we learn that, whenever a husband became jealous 
of his wife, "and there be no witness against her," he 
was required to take her to a priest, who was to 
administer to her a fetich in the form of a foul and 
noxious drink, prepared according to a recipe fur- 
nished by God himself. " And when he [the priest] 
hath made her to drink the [fetich] water, then it shall 
come to pass that, if she be defiled, and have done 
trespass against her husband, that the [fetich] water 
that causeth the curse [having discovered her guilt] 
shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly 
shall swell, and her thigh shall rot; and the woman 



104 THE REAL BLASPHEMER?. 

shall be a curse among her people. And if the 
woman be not defiled, but be clean, then [the fetich 
having discovered and made known her innocence] 
she shall be free, and shall conceive seed" (Num. v, 
27, 28). Could blasphemy be carried much farther 
than my opponents have carried it by thus charging 
against God this monstrous form of fetichism? 

In Ex. xxxii, 27-29, we read : " Thus saith the 
Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his 
side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout 
the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every 
man his companion, and every man his neighbor. 
And the children of Levi did according to the word of 
Moses, and there fell of the people that day about 
three thousand men. For Moses had said, Consecrate 
yourselves to-day to the Lord, even every man upon 
his son, and upon his brother, that he may bestow 
upon you a blessing this dajv' What could be more 
horrible than this? Three thousand bleeding human 
sacrifices, or, as many of our Bibles have it, twenty- 
three thousand, oflered to God in one day, by his own 
order, as the price of his blessing! And, like a ghoul, 
God accepted this horrible gift, this monstrous mass of 
ghastly corpses, as a pleasing sacrifice; and, in return 
for it, bestowed his "blessing/' whatever that was, 
upon the horrid murderers who so readily offered it ! 

And yet, in this soul-sickening case, the blood-be- 
smeared murderers, upon whom God bestowed this 
"blessing," were themselves guilty of the very same 
offense for which they thus so cruelly and so treacher- 
ously butchered their poor unsuspecting sons, brothers, 
neighbors, and companions. Moses, it seems, had been 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 105 

absent about six weeks, profes c edly spending his time 
at a kind of writing-school taught by God, his boon, 
companion, upon a mountain in the neighborhood. 
During his absence his brother Aaron was left in com- 
mand of the people. While thus acting as commander- 
in-chief, Aaron, who seems to have had precious little 
faith in the jealous, bloodthirsty, beef-eating God of 
his brother, made, for the people to worship, a golden 
calf, which was certainly as harmless a god as he could 
have provided for that purpose. Upon his return, 
however, Moses looked upon this calf-god enterprise 
with a great deal of disfavor, as did also his companion 
and writing-master, the calf-god's great rival. Hence 
followed the horrible massacre which has just been 
described. Instead, however, of punishing Aaron 
himself, who was certainly the principal offender in 
this affair, God, Moses & Co. made him their high 
priest, and in his stead, as we have seen, caused to be 
mercilessly and treacherously butchered many thou- 
sands of inoffensive and unsuspecting persons who, as 
dutiful soldiers or subjects, had simply obeyed his 
commands. 

And this ia the God, all unchanged and unchange- 
able, who, by the sword, was forced upon our ances- 
tors, and whom, simply because you were born to him 
and stuffed with him before you were old enough to 
reason, you still continue to blindly worship. Had 
you been thus born to some other God, and thus early 
stuffed with him, you would have been just as devoted 
worshipers of that God as you now are of this. And 
hud you been as early and as thoroughly taught concern- 
ing nature and her powers, you would have needed no 



106 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

God at all, certainly not such a one as you now have. 
Indeed, in that case, no one could have forced upon 
you any such a God. None but the mentally blind can 
truly worship this monstrous impersonation of almcst 
everything that is wicked and atrocious. Since, ac- 
cording to your own teachings, this fearfully atrocious 
monster is utterly incapable of any change; since he 
is, consequently, just as atrocious a monster now as he 
ever was, what assurance have you that, on some 
occasion in the near future, he may not, as the price 
of his blessing to your father, 3-our brother, your neigh- 
bor, and your companion, require them thus treacher- 
ously to butcher you ? Or, failing to do this, why may 
he not, as the price of his blessing to you, require you 
thus treacherously to butcher your son, your brother, 
your neighbor, and your companion? Since you 
yourselves charge him with having once been guilty 
of this unspeakably horrible act, and since you your- 
selves contend that he has undergone no change for 
the better, can you, with any kind of plausibility, 
claim that he is now any too good to repeat that act? 
And would such a requirement, if now made upon 
your relatives with respect to yourselves, or upon 
yourselves with respect to your relatives, be an}' more 
horrible in its atrocit\ T than it was on the occasion 111 
question, when made upon certain Hebrews with re- 
spect to their nearest and dearest relatives? Would 
not the nature of the act be, of necessity, the very 
same? Bring the case home to yourselves, therefoie, 
and then, perhaps, you may be able to see it in its 
true, its horribly atrocious light. 

If this God should thus require you now. in cold 



THE HEAL BLASPHEMERS. 107 

blood, to so cruelly and so treacherously butcher your 
own sons, your own brothers, your own neighbors, and 
your own companions, would you, or would you not, 
obey that requirement ? If you would, then you are 
true and consistent worshipers of this bloody mon- 
strosity, and are fair examples of what the teachingsof 
the Bible — a great portion of them, anyway — tend to 
make of men. If you would not, then you are, unde- 
niably, a set of base hypocrites, and not the true and 
obedient worshipers of this hideous monstrosity. 
Nothing short of a perfect willingness, on the part of 
the Hebrews in question, to treacherously butcher in 
cold blood their own unsuspecting sons, brothers, 
neighbors, and companions — nothing but a perfect 
willingness, on the part of Abraham, to butcher and 
roast his own son for this voracious and ghoulish God 
to regale himself upon, would satisfy him in the case 
of these parties, and, since he never changes, nothing 
short of a perfect willingness on your part to butcher, 
and, if need be, to roast and to serve up as God-food 
your own children and other dear ones, whenever 
called upon so to do, can possibly satisfy him in your 
case. Remember that this hideous monster has never 
grown any better. Abraham was perfectly willing to 
butcher, to roast, and to serve up bis own son to 
gratify the insatiate olfactories of this hideous mon- 
ster, and that willingness, on his part, to commit this 
soul-sickening crime was imputed to him, by the mon- 
ster, for righteousness. This God may, or may not 
ever, require you thus to butcher, to roast, and to 
serve up to him your own children. Having never 
changed, however, since he did make such a require- 



108 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

inent, lie is certainly none too good to make such a 
requirement now. Whether he does, or does not, ever 
make any sucli requirement of you, does not make a 
particle of difference. He looks simply at your will- 
ingness to commit the crime. If, then, you would be 
righteous in his eyes, you must be perfectly willing at 
all times and under all circumstances, to commit this 
or any other horrible crime, if called upon by him so 
to do. This doctrine is plainly taught in the Bible, 
and, if the doctrine be a pernicious and blasphe- 
mous one, then the Bible is clearly a pernicious and 
blasphemous book. Naturally enough, Freeman and 
others, of our own time and our own country, misled by 
these plain teachings of the Bible, have, with the most 
pious intentions, imbrued their hands in the life-blood 
of their own children. And are not similar crimes 
bound to prevail among those who accept the teach- 
ings of the Bible as of .divine authority ? Put your- 
selves in the places of either the murderers or the 
murdered, and how do the cases which we have just 
noticed appear? And you shout the praises of this 
hideous Grod, and persecute me so bitterly because 
my soul revolts from the worship of so bloody a mon- 
ster — because I cannot believe that the infinitely 
great and glorious power that rules the universe 
ever does or ever did thus require men. in cold blood, 
to treacherously butcher their own sons, their own 
brothers, their own neighbors, and their own compan- 
ions. — because I cannotbeiieve that this infinitely great 
and glorious power ever does or ever did thus require 
men to butcher and to roast their own children for the 
gratification of its sense of smell : and because I will 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 109 

not, like yourselves, hypocritically and blasphemously 
pretend to believe these monstrous charges against 
this infinitely great and glorious power! 

In Beut. xiii, 6-10, we read : " If thy brother, the 
son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the 
wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine 
own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and 
serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou 
nor thy father; . . . thou shalt not consent unto 
him, nor hearken unto him ; neither shalt thine e} 7 e pity 
him; neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou con- 
ceal him: but thou shalt surely kill him- thine hand 
shall be first upon him to put him to death, and after- 
ward the hand of all the people. And thou shalt 
stone him with stones that he die." What could be 
more horribly blasphemous than to charge God, as my 
opponents all do, with having issued this atrocious — 
this worse than hellish — command. Jesus, the Holy 
Ghost, and the Virgin Mary are three deities which 
neither the Hebrews nor their fathers had known. If, 
then, you would obey this horrible commandment, 
you should kill your brother, your son, your daughter, 
your wife, your friend, your minister, or any other 
person who attempts to persuade you to serve any one 
of these deities. 

In Num. xxv, 4, 5, we read : " And the Lord said 
unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang 
them up before the Lord against the sun, that the 
tierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from 
Israel. And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, 
Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baal- 
peor." The offense for which these men were thus to 



110 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

suffer death was the exercising of the inalienable 
right — a right so unspeakably dear to all freemen of 
the present time — to marry whatsoever women they 
pleased, and to worship whatsoever gods they pleased. 
Since they were to be hauged up "before the Lord 
. . . that the fierce anger of the Lord may be 
turned away from Israel," they were undeniably so 
nf fifty human sacrifices demanded by bim, offered to 
him and accepted by him. If anything more blas- 
phemous than this could be said against God, what 
is it? 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. Ill 



LECTURE FOURTH. 

"And they utterly destroyed all that was in the 
city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, 
and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword." So 
reads the twenty-first verse of the sixth chapter of the 
book of Joshua. For a long list of similar butcheries, 
see the entire book of Joshua, and especially the tenth 
chapter. By the direct command of the God whom 
you now worship, and who is certainly no better now 
than he was then, Joshua thus invariably butchered, 
without any distinction of age, sex, or condition, all 
the inhabitants of all the many cities that he captured. 
In every case of the taking of a city, he " utterly de- 
stroyed all the souls that were therein ; he left none 
remaining; .... he utterly destroyed all that 
breathed." All of these horrible wholesale murders, 
too, were committed, not for anything wrong that the 
poor defenseless victims had done, but simply because 
this bloodthirsty adopted God of yours wanted their 
land for his own chosen band of robbers and cut 
throats, whose tutelary divinity he then was. The 
whole soul-sickening history closes as follows: "And 
all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one 
time ; because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel'' 
(Josh, x, 42). How can you have the face to claim, 
as you do, that the illimitable force that rules the uni- 
verse was ever this bloodthirsty monster — this ;; Lord 



112 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

God of Israel ?" How dare you make an assertion so 
fearfully full of blasphemy? 

In the thirty-first chapter of Numbers we have an 
account of the destruction of the Midianites by the 
command of this same fearfully bloodthirsty tutelary 
divinity of the Hebrews — this u Lord God of Israel." 
In its soul-sickening atrocity, this utterly unjustifiable 
butchery eclipses any other butchery of which we 
have any account in the entire history of the world's 
cruelties and crimes. The soldiers who had been sent 
out against Midian slew all of the Midianitish men, 
who seem to have been completely surprised by this 
utterly unprovoked attack, and to have been totally 
unprepared to resist it. More merciful, however, than 
was either Moses or this "Lord God of Israel," these 
soldiers spared the women and children, and brought 
them all in as captives. Because of this act of mercy, 
Moses was very angry with the officers and the soldiers. 
Acting, therefore, under the direct orders of his God — 
the God that he himself had made, and that you now 
worship — he went out to meet the soldiers, and ad- 
dressed them as follows: "Have ye saved all the 
women alive? Now, therefore, kill every male among 
the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known 
a man by lying with him. But all the women children 
that have not known man by lying with him. keep 
alive for yourselves." Moses seems to have been 
almost overcome with astonishment that the soldiers 
of the Lord's peculiar people should have displayed 
humanity enough to spare the lives of the poor, be- 
reaved, inoffensive, and utterly helpless women and 
children. In order to ascertain which ones of those 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 113 

women had, and which ones of them had not, "known 
a man by lying with him." all of them who had passed 
beyond the age of infancy had. of necessity, to be sub- 
jected to a careful surgical examination of certain 
nameless parts of their bodies. A public examination 
so revolting to all the instincts of female modesty, 
performed by the lewd and unskillful priests and 
s I liery, cannot be more than hinted at before a mixed 
audience such as I am now addressing. 

When, however, this unutterably revolting exami- 
nation was ended — when, by this means, :; all the 
women children that have not known man by lying 
with him." had been discovered and separated from 
the rest of the captives, then began the cold-blooded, 
the soul-sickening butchery of the many tens of thou- 
sands of wives, mothers, and male infants. A signal 
was given. At once the air was rent and the earth 
made to tremble with the deafening yells of the God- 
chosen legions of murderers, raging now like ravenous 
wild beasts at the smell of blood, and the piercing 
shrieks of their immense multitude of utterly helpless 
victims, now wild with unutterable terror. Picture to 
yourself, if you can. the whole unspeakably horrible 
scene as being now enacted before your own eyes. 
Picture it, too. if you can. as being enacted with vour 
own wive?, your own mothers, your own sisters, your 
own daughters, your own infant sons, as the victims, 
and some rival sect of religionists as the butchers. 
The little ones — your own sweet babes among them — 
cling to their mothers, and those of them who are 
old enough to know their danger plead piteously for 
protection, which, of course, the poor, doomed 



114 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

mothers are unable to give. On their bended knees, 
in tones that would move the hearts of the foulest 
fiends of hell, the mothers — your own wives, your 
own mothers, your own sisters, your own daughters, 
among them — implore mercy, not for themselves, 
but for their poor, helpless little babes. These 
poor mothers, however, are not pleading with the 
foulest fiends of hell, who might show them some 
mercy ; they are pleading with people who do not 
know any such thing as mercy — with the chosen peo- 
ple of your adopted God. B\ r the tens of thousands 
at once these chosen servants of God tear the infants 
from the sheltering arms of their loving mothers, hurl 
them by their feet in the air, and crush their poor, 
tender little heads upon the stones. Hear the awful, 
the unearthly wailings of those bereaved mothers' 
Earth never before heard a sound so fearfully full of 
unutterable woe — of unimaginable despair ! But those 
awful, those never-to-be-forgotten wailings are fast 
being hushed forever in death. By the direct orders 
of the God that you either blindly or wickedly 
worship, the heads of these poor, bereaved mothers 
are now being cleft from their shoulders and made to 
roll in the dust; their tender bosoms are being pierced 
with rude weapons of iron; their skulls are being 
crushed with heavy stones, and their throats are being 
cut and their bowels are being ripped open with for- 
midable butcher-knives. The cries of the victims are 
now hushed forever in death. The murderers, hoarse 
and exhausted, cease their yellings. An awful silence 
reigns all around. Vast heaps of warm, quivering, 
bleeding corpses cover the ground. Great pools of 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 115 

dark, smoking blood are collecting in all the low 
places. A fearfully sickening odor is arising from 
this, the most unutterably horrible of all the slaughter- 
pens of earth, and your God, delighted with this scene, 
smiles his approval and pronounces his blessing upon 
his faithful servants, covered now from head to foot 
with the blood and the brains of the women and the 
children that they have just finished murdering. Yes, 
if you can do so, picture to yourselves all the unutter- 
able horrors of this, the most unimaginably hideous 
scene ever enacted by either the fiends of earth or the 
fiends of hell. If you can do so, picture to yourselves 
your own loved ones being thus brutally butchered by 
litis fearfully bloodthirsty adopted or step-God of 
yours, and then, if you feel like doing so, break forth 
into hallelujahs of praise to this hideous deific mon- 
strosity while he is thus occupied upon those loved 
ones. In the name of humanity, however, do not ask 
me — do not ask any one but a blind bigot like your- 
selves — to join you in these worse than hellish orgies. 
Do not ask me to blindly believe, as do you, or to 
blasphemously declare, as also do you, that any deed, 
so unutterably atrocious, was ever committed by the 
only true God — the God of nature. Remember that, 
to me, these deeds appear just as atrocious now as they 
would appear to us all if they were committed upon 
our own loved ones by the Brahmins, the Moham- 
medans, or some other foreign sect, professedly by the 
command of their own God, or by some rival sect of 
Christians, professedly by the command of this same 
God. In a poem, "The Devil's Defense," I have de- 
picted this whole fiendish affair as follows: 



116 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

He ord'reth his bund, with n bloody hand, 

To butcher both young and old; 
To render the land like a waste of sand 

Where the billows once have rolled. 
They hasten to do as the Lord doth command, 
Like demons let loose, they destroy the whole land; 
Alas for the victims ! wherever they turn 
Destruction awaits, while their villages burn. 
Great volumes of smoke, like a vast floating pall, 
Hang dark o'er the valleys, the mountains, and all; 
From the depths of their darkness arise on the air 
Such terrible yells and such screams of despair, 
That all the damned spirits and demons of hell 
Could never this scene in its horrors excel. 

Of strong and brave men but a few now remain, 
Their bodies lie scattered all over the plain ; 
Those few are surrounded ; like lions at bay, 
They rush on their murderers, they yell and they slay. 
But beaten by numbers, their eyes gleaming fire, 
They scream their defiance, they fall, they expire. 
Resistance now ceases, the ground is all red 
With blood from the veins of poor Midian's dead. 

But burst forth anew on the smoke-burdened air, 
More terrible wailings of utter despair ; 
Old women, whose locks are as white as the snow, 
Are butchered and left to the vulture and crow. 
The fond mothers flee with their babes at the breast, 
Oh ! could they save these, they could lose all the rest ; 
But flight is in vain, by the Lord's chosen men 
They are caught and conveyed to a vast slaughter-pen. 
A signal is given — around them there rains 
A shower of blood mixed with theirhabies' crushed brains. 
Oh! horrible! horrible! maddening sight! 
Haste! haste! ye wild darkness, and hide it in night! 
The mothers still cling to the bodies yet hot, 
They gaze in the eyes, but are recognized not; 
Those blood-covered bodies still fondly they press, 
The names the)' still call, and they wildly caress ; 
Their agonized bosoms with mother-love burn, 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 117 

-But no mark of love comes to them in return. 

The lips that so lately were wreathed in a smile, 

All mangled and gory still quiver awhile; 

Death's pallor creeps over each poor little face, 

The heart-throbbings cease, and the eyes glaze apace. 

Their lives have departed forever away, 

Those sweet little babies are now only clay. 

The mothers see this, and are now glad to die, 

No longer they struggle, no longer they cry : 

Their throats are now cut, and their blood, like a spout, 

On their babies' dear faces comes gushing right out; 

Their bodies unburied encumber the sod, 

And this is all done by the orthodox God. 

After witnessing this unspeakably horrible butchery 
of their mothers, their married sisters, and their little 
brothers, "all the women children that have not 
known man by lying with him," w r ere divided out, for 
the vilest of purposes, among the blood-besmeared 
murderers of all these their dear ones. Of these 
"women children" there were thirty-two thousand, 
and the soldiers, the priests, the citizens, and your God 
all came in for a share of them. For his own share 
your God, the hideous monster that had all these 
atrocious murders committed, received thirty-two of 
these " women children," to be used either directly by 
himself or by his priests as his proxies. Since he then 
had a body, just like the body of a man, he could, of 
course, himself have used his share of those u women 
children," just as the priests and others used their 
shares — just as all men use their wives and their mis- 
tresses. 

And this, the most hideous of all monsters, is, ac- 
cording to your own teachings, the God to whom you 
P a y your blind and idolatrous, if not wicked and de- 



118 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS, 

grading, worship. This monster is the God for whom 
you erect so many of those gorgeous resorts of pride, 
vanity, fashion, bigotry, superstition, and intolerance, 
willed churches. This monster is the God for whom 
you keep up so many vast armies of worse than use- 
less priests. This monster is the God to whom you 
pretend to offer those buncombe public addresses of 
yours which you call prayers. This monster is the 
God that you pretend to bamboozle, by the most abject 
flatteries, into doing your bidding — into pardoning 
your sins, saving your souls, damning your neighbors, 
etc., just as the Jews, when he was simply their tute- 
lary divinit}% were wont to bamboozle him into doing 
their bidding by stuffing him with roast meat-. And 
lias this monster ever become any less a monster than 
he was when he committed the horrible deeds which 
we have just been noticing? If not, how can you 
have the hardness of face to blasphemously declare, as 
you do, that he is the only true God — the infinitely 
great and glorious power that rules the universe? 

Beaten, as they have been, at every point at which 
I have met them, my opponents now rashly venture 
to assert that in one respect at least their God, or 
rather their step-God, this hideous monster of the 
Bible, has a better record than has most of his rival 
Gods; that he has never required human sacrifices to 
be offered to himself, has never accepted any such sac- 
rifices, and has never even permitted such sacrifices to 
be offered upon his altars. Unfortunately, however, 
for ray opponents, the Bible clearly teaches that this 
monstrous God did not only permit human sacrifices 
to be offered to himself, but also did require them to 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 119 

be thus offered, and did accept them as pleasing sacri- 
fices. At the close of the last lecture I gave an in- 
stance in which he required the " heads " or leaders 
of the people to be hanged up "before the Lord" — 
that is, before himself. This was certainly a propitia- 
tory human sacrifice. Had these men been doomed to 
to be simply put to death by hanging they would not 
have needed to be hanged up "before the Lord." As 
the case stood, it was absolutely necessary that they 
should suffer death in the immediate presence of the 
Lord, in order that, being delighted with the spectacle 
of their death agonies, " the fierce anger of the Lord " 
might "be turned away from Israel." 

In Lev. xxvii, 28, 29, we read : " Notwithstanding 
no devoted thing [that is, no thing promised to the 
Lord by a vow] that a man shall devote unto the Lord 
of all that he hath, both of man and of beast, and of 
the field of his possession, shall be sold or re- 
deemed. . . None devoted, which shall be devoted 
of men [as were Jephthah's daughter and some others 
long afterwards] shall be redeemed ; but shall surely 
be put to death." As you plainly see, this law which, 
according to the teachings of all my opponents, was 
derived directly from God himself, just as fully pro- 
vides for the devoting to him of human beings at it 
provides for the devoting to him of beasts or of any- 
thing else. You plainly see, too, that this law strictly 
forbids the redemption from death of any person thus 
devoted or solemnly promised to the Lord. You 
plainly see that all such persons "shall surely be put 
to death." T do not think- that this law was ever re- 
pealed among the Jews. I think it was always lawful 



120 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

among them to devote or promise by vow human 
beings to the Lord, and that it was never lawful among 
them to omit the putting to death of the persons thus 
devoted. At any rate, three hundred and forty-eight 
years afterward, according to the commonly accepted 
chronology of the Bible, in the time of Jephthah. both 
provisions of the law were still in force. This we 
learn from the fact that, according to the former pro- 
vision of this law, Jephthah devoted his own beloved 
daughter to the Lord, and from the fact that, according 
the second provision, he was prevented from withd raw- 
ing from the fulfillment of his rash vow which, upon 
calm reflection, he greatly regretted having made. 

In 1 Kings, xiii, 1, 2, we read: " And behold, there 
came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the 
Lord unto Bethel; and Jeroboam stood by the altar 
to burn incense. And he [the man of God] cried 
against the altar in the •word of the Lord, and said. Oh 
altar, altar, thus saith the Lord, Behold a child shall 
be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name ; 
and upon thee shall he offer [as sacrifices, of course; 
nothing else was ever offered upon altars] the priests 
of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and 
men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." Turning now 
to 2 Kings, xxiii, 20, w T e learn that, in accordance 
with this prediction, Josiah "slew [or "sacrificed," as 
it means, and as it is given in the margin] all the 
priests of the high places that were there upon the 
altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and 
returned to Jerusalem." From the second verse of 
the preceding chapter we learn that> in doing these 
things, Josiah "did that which was right in the sight 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 121 

of the Lord." Here, then, we have your God requir- 
ing human sacrifices to be offered to himself — my 
opponents will not dare to claim that he had them 
offered to any of his hated rival gods — and fully 
accepting them when they were offered. Li thus 
charging their God with this awful crime, are not my 
opponents again guilty of great blasphemy? 

In Jud. xi, 30, 31, we read : " And Jephthah vowed 
a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without 
fail deliver the children of Amnion into mine hands, 
then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the 
doors of my house [not of the doors of his sheep-fold 
or his cattle-pen] to meet me, when I return in peace 
from the children of Amnion, shall surely be the 
Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. M 
Since the object which was to be offered to the Lord 
'• for a burnt offering'' was to come forth of the doors 
of Jephthah's "house," and not from those of his 
sheepfold or his cattle-pen, and since it was to come 
forth to "meet" him, it was certainly something that 
was accustomed to dwell in his house, and not some- 
thing that was accustomed to dwell either in his sheep- 
fold or in his cattle-pen. It was certainly something 
that could recognize him as he approached — some- 
thing that could at any time open the doors of his 
house, and that could and would, because of its love 
for him, go forth to meet him. It could not have 
been a cat or a dog, for these, being unclean beasts, 

were never offered to God as ' ; burnt offerings " — offer- 
ee 

ings upon which he was supposed to feast. And 
'•ould it have been any other beast — any beaet fit for 
a •'burnt offering?" Can we for a moment believe 



122 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

that Jephthah was accustomed to keep his bulls, his 
rams, etc., in his " house" — in his parlor with his wife 
and daughter — and that he expected one of these 
animals to open the "doors" of his "house," and rush 
forth in advance of the members of his family to 
" meet " him on his return ? If not, if we are to 
believe that, like a decent man, he was not accustomed 
to keep any such animals in his house, and if we are 
to believe that, like an intelligent man, he did not ex- 
pect any such animals to " come forth of the doors of " 
his "house to meet " him, are we not bound to believe 
that, from the very start, he fully meant to offer up to 
the Lord as a "burnt offering" some member of his 
family — some one that he was accustomed to keep in 
his "house," and that naturally -would be very likely 
to " to come forth of the doors of " his " house to 
meet" him on his return? Indeed, could the very 
great value which obviously attached to the promised 
sacrifice have attached to any other living thing in his 
possession? Even admitting that he was accustomed 
to keep his bulls, his rams, and other very untidy 
"clean beasts " in his "house," with his family, and 
that he was accustomed to see these genteel beasts 
come "forth of the doors of " his "house to meet" 
him on his return from any journey, could he have 
had the face to thus ask Grod to grant him a great 
national victory in return for one of these common and 
cheap sacrifices, hundreds of which, for comparatively 
trivial matters, were wont to be offered to God every 
day? Did not Jephthah certainly mean to offer a 
sacrifice which, in his own estimaiion, as far exceeded 
in value a bull or a rani as a great national victory ex- 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 123 

ceeded in importance the things for which bulls and 
rams were wont to be offered? Did he not expect 
God to regard his sacrifice as worth a thousand times 
more than a bull or a ram, and to be willing to give a 
thousand times as much for it? Could the sacrifice 
intended, then, have been any ching else than one of the 
members of Jepthah's own family ? At any rate, did 
he not, in fulfilment of his vow, offer to God, in the 
form of a "burnt offering," his own beautiful and 
dearly beloved daughter? And would he have done 
this if she had not at least been included among the 
things from among which he intended to select his 
sacrifice? And did not God accept this inestimably 
precious sacrifice, and did he not pay the great price 
demanded for it by Jephthah, by giving this latter per- 
sonage the signal victory which he so greatly desired 
over his enemies, the Ammonites? 

Admitting, however, that, at the time of which 
we are speaking, Jephthah was accustomed to keep his 
bull, his ram, etc., in his parlor with the members 
of his family — admitting, too, that, together with the 
members of his family, these high-toned beasts were 
accustomed to come joyfully forth to meet him on his 
return from any journey; admitting, further, that 
under these circumstances, Jephthah may have been 
uncertain whether, in the fulfilment of his vow, he 
would have to offer up as a "burnt offering" his 
wife, his daughter, his bull, his ram, or his mother-in- 
law, how much better do we render the matter? Ad- 
mitting that he expected, on his return, to find all these 
elite beasts in his parlor, could he have reasonably 
expected that any one of them would be before 



124 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

his daughter and all the other members of his family 
to come forth to meet him ? Would he not have ex- 
pected that some member of his family would -be 
a thousand times more likely to come thus forth than 
would any of these beasts? In any conceivable view 
of the case, were not the various members of his 
family, if not the only living creatures from among 
which his sacrifice was to be taken, certainly included 
among those creatures? In any conceivable view of 
the case, must not Jephthah have certainly known 
that the sacrifice which he was devoting unto the 
Lord was a thousand times more likely to be some 
member of his family than it was to be anything else? 
Be all these things as they may, however, my oppo- 
nents themselves teach that God, foreknowing ail 
things, knew very well, when Jephthah made the rash 
vow in question, just what the sacrifice promised 
would prove to be; and since, in return for that one 
well-known sacrifice, he granted, in advance, a favor 
worth more than ten thousand bulls or rams, it is evi- 
dent that he regarded that single sacrifice as worth 
more than that number of bulls or rams. And what 
one living thing, of all that Jephthah possessed, ex- 
cept his own beautiful daughter or some other human 
being, could have been regarded by God as of so 
immense a value? It matters not, then, what Jeph- 
thah may, or may not, have expected that the prom- 
ised sacrifice would prove to be, God certainly ex- 
pected it to be just what it was — a human being. At 
any rate, since, according to the teachings of all my 
opponents, God had full control of all future events: 
since all power was then, as it is now. derived from 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 125 

him; since no future event had any power of its own 
to either bring itself to pass or to prevent itself from 
coming to pass, he, and he alone, undeniably had it in 
his power, at the time in question, to so control events, 
in the then near future, that the promised burnt offer- 
ing should be just what he wished it to be; and 
he just as undeniably did so control those events. Is 
not the fact, then, that the burnt offering in question 
did turn out to be a beautiful young woman proof 
positive that he willed it to turn out just so, and that 
lie so controlled events that it could not turn out 
otherwise? If he had willed it to be otherwise than it 
was, and if he had done his utmost to so control events 
that it should be otherwise, would it not certainly have 
been otherwise? If he had not willed it to be a 
human being, would it have been one? If he had 
willed it to be anything else, would he not have either 
rejected Jephthah's offer as an improper one, or else 
have so controlled events that, upon this man's return 
from battle, he should be first met by some other 
creature, suitable for a burnt offering, and not thus by 
his own beloved daughter? See how it was in the 
case of Abraham, when, in like manner, he was about 
to sacrifice his son Isaac. In that case, God, not wish- 
ing the sacrifice to be made, very easily found means 
to prevent it from being made. 

In their almost pitiable desperation, some of my op- 
ponents claim that God had nothing at all to do with the 
events that resulted in this young woman being offered 
to him as a burnt offering. They claim that all of these 
events occurred entirely by chance. This, however, 
is not the teaching of the Bible. It teaches that God 



126 THE REAL BLASFHKMKKr*. 

did have everything to do with those events — that he 
gave Jephthah a miraculous victory over the Ammon- 
ites, and that he gave this victory, too, in considera- 
tion of the great value of the offering promised to hi in 
by Jephthah. It teaches us, further, that it was lefc 
entirely with himself to select, from among all the 
living creatures in Jephthah's house, the particular 
one which he wished to have sacrificed to himself as a 
burnt offering; that he was to make this selection, and 
tli at he did make it, by causing that particular crea- 
ture, and no other, to be the first to come forth to meet 
Jephthah upon his return. Besides all this, since 
those events were connected with other events more 
remote and more numerous, both in the past and in 
the future, and these with other events still more 
remote and still more numerous, and so on forever; 
since, in other words, those events constituted an 
essential and inseparable part of the entire grand total 
of all the events, past, present, and future, of the uni- 
verse, they must, of necessity, have proceeded from 
the same grand cause that had produced, and that was 
to produce, all other events. If, then, those events 
were the result of chance, all other events must, of 
necessity, be also the result of chance. This entirely 
does away with God, and makes Atheists of those of 
my opponents who set up the unfounded claim in 
question. The same results, too, are inevitably reached 
by another portion of my opponents who very reason- 
ably claim that those events proceeded simply from 
the laws of nature. The only way to save your G-od, 
then, you plainly see, is to boldly make him the 
author of those events. 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 127 

Be all these things as they may, however, my op- 
ponents will not dare to deny the fact that, on his 
return from battle — from the God-procured victory in 
question — Jephthah, a man specially chosen and in- 
structed of God to be a leader of the people and a 
model for their imitation, did regard his own daugh- 
ter, who was the first to come "forth of the doors of 
his " house to meet " him, as the thing, and the only 
thing, that he had devoted to God. and as the thing, and 
the only thing that God would certainly require at his 
hands, in fulfillment of that promise, and in return for 
the victory which God had given him on the strength 
of that promise. They will also not dare to deny the 
fact that the law which I have quoted — the law of his 
God and of his country — rendered it impossible for him 
to retract that vow — impossible for him to evade the 
painful fulfillment of the solemn obligation under 
which he had, by the making of that vow, placed 
himself to butcher and to roast his own daughter. 
He told her of his vow, and, so far from charging him 
with having made a wicked, or even an unnecessary, 
vow, she seemed to think that his act was a right and 
proper one, and that his vow should be sacredly kept. 
He reminded her of the law which required that, under 
these circumtsances, she should "surely be put to 
death;" and she perceiving the unfortunate dilemma 
in which he had placed himself, expressed her entire 
willingness to be thus butchered, roasted, and served 
up, a la mode cannibale, on the Lord's table. All she 
asked was a stay of proceedings for two months, that, 
as she expressed it, she might "go up and down the 
mountains, and bewail my virginity." Just what she 



123 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

meant by bewailing her " virginity," I do not cer- 
tainly know. She probably meant a bewailing of the 
fact that, as a result of her father's vow, she was com- 
pelled to yield up her young and sweet life while she 
was yet a virgin — while yet w r ere untasted by her the 
joys of wifehood, to which, like most other maidens, 
she had doubtless been wont to look forward with 
pleasing anticipations. Be this as it may, however, 
since she had, as yet, never been butchered, roasted, 
and devoured by a God, she doubtless felt a kind of 
timidity in entering upon that experience now. She 
may, therefore, have desired the delay in question also 
that she might put herself in the best possible condi- 
tion to be butchered — that she might give to her flesh 
as delicious a flavor as possible. The very thought 
that, to the Lord's fastidious taste, she might prove an 
unsavory dish was probably more than her proud 
young spirit could bear. 

The balance of this wonderfully charming and 
instructive story — this story which, with other Bible 
stories of the same kind, has led many pious men, like 
Freeman, even in our own time and our own country, 
to murder their own children for the glory of God — 
we learn from the thirty-ninth verse, which says, 
"And it came to pass at the end of two months, that 
she returned unto her father, who did with her accord- 
ing to his vow which he had vowed." If God had not 
been perfectly willing that this vow should be ful- 
filled, would he not, before the close of those two 
months, have released Jephthah from the obligation 
of that vow? Were not he and Jephthah at that time 
on very intimate terms? Were they not almost daily 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 129 

holding interviews with each other? And did he not 
very well know that, without such a release given by 
himself, Jephthah was compelled by a law of the land 
— a law which had been given by God himself — to ful- 
fill that rashly made vow? Does not the fact, then, that 
under the circumstances God permitted such a sacri- 
fice to be offered to himself prove, beyond all reason- 
able contradiction, that the offering was an acceptable 
one? Was he not just as much present where that 
sacrifice was being made, as you are present here this 
evening? Did he not just as clearly see what was 
being done and hear what was being said on that occa- 
sion, as you now see what I am doing and hear what I 
am saying? Picture to yourselves, then, if you can, 
this adopted God of yours — this inordinate consumer 
of roast meats — sitting quietly by, licking his mouth 
and sniffing the air, as he watches the progress of the 
preparation of the horrible feast which is being pre- 
pared for the special gratification of his own appetite, 
or, at least, of his own sense of smell. Picture him to 
3'ourselves, if you can ; as he quietly watches Jeph- 
thah. while this poor misguided fanatic — this true man 
of God — proceeds, with ghastly features, trembling 
hands, and streaming eyes, to cut the throat of his 
only child, the light of his home, his own loving 
daughter; as he proceeds to catch her blood in a 
basin, to rip open her body, to take out her heart, her 
liver, her intestines, etc.; as he proceeds, with unim- 
aginable agony, to wash her bloody flesh, and to roast 
it upon the altar. Picture him to 3'ourselves, if you 
can, as he proceeds, like a ghoul, to regale himself 
upon this horrible efeast, either by devouring the 



130 THE HEAL BLASPHEMERS. 

roasted flesh itself, or else by inhaling its savory odors 
Yes, picture, if you can, all these things to yourselves, 
and then, if you feel like doing so, break forth in loud 
hallelujahs to this hideous monster, this cannibal God. 
In the name of humanity, however, I beseech you, do 
not ever again condemn Freeman and others who, in 
our own time, incited by this holy example of the 
Bible, and by other examples of the same nature, 
have, for the glory of this same unchangeable, flesh- 
loving monster, sacrificed to him their own beloved 
children. And do not ever again commit the atro- 
cious blasphemy of claiming that this man-eating 
monster is the true God — the infinitely great and glo- 
rious power that rules the universe. 

Here, then, we have a clear case in which a human 
sacrifice was offered to your God, by his true wor- 
shipers, and accepted by him. In this case, too, the 
sacrifice was in that most horrible of all forms, the form 
of a "burnt offering'' — the form upon which your God, 
like all other gods, was then supposed to feast. This 
is just as clear, just as soul-sickening, a case as is any 
one that can be made out against any other god ever 
worshiped by men. In this case, too, the sacrifice was 
made, as you see, not, as some of my opponents would 
fain have us believe that it was, in violation of your 
God's revealed laws, but strictly in accordance with 
them. The law involved in the case has already been 
quoted. Having, in accordance with this God-given 
law, and in accordance with what he believed to be, 
under the circumstances, his solemn duty, " devoted " 
to the Lord some member of his family, Jephthah, 
when he perceived that the death- lot had fallen upon 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 131 

his only child, bis beloved daughter, did not for a 
moment think of such a thing as the evading of the 
' performance of that vow. He knew that, without vio- 
lating the law of his country and of his God, he could 
not " go back " upon the performance of that vow. In 
the bitterness of a heart wounded unto death, he sim- 
ply said : (i Alas, my daughter, thou [by being thus the 
first to come "forth of the doors of my house to meet 
me "] hast brought me very low, and thou art one of 
them that trouble me : for I have opened my mouth 
to the Lord [in a vow, declaring ''that whatsoever 
cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me. 
. . . shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it 
up for a burnt offering; " and since the law strictly 
requires that everything thus devoted unto the Lord 
"shall surely be put to death''], I cannot go back."' 
The Hebrews, too, who, for nearly two months before 
the occurrence of the awful tragedy in question, doubt- 
less knew what Jephthah proposed to do to his daugh- 
ter, made no effort to prevent him from accomplishing 
that purpose. They evidently believed that such sac- 
rifices were peculiarly acceptable to God, and that, 
consequently, it was perfectly right and proper, in 
Jephthah or in any one else who saw fit to do so. to 
offer them. So, after Jephthah had sacrificed his 
daughter, the Hebrews, so far from condemning and 
punishing him as a criminal who had violated their 
laws, honored him as the preserver of those laws, and 
rewarded him by making him their governor and 
supreme judge during the balance of his life. They 
certainly regarded human sacrifices, when offered to 
their own God. as perfectly right and proper. And 



1S2 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

lie certainly regarded such sacrifices, when offered to 
himself, in this same light. He certainly looked with 
special approbation upon those parents who were will- 
ing to thus sacrifice their children unto him. See the 
case of Abraham. He was perfectly willing to thus 
sacrifice his own son Isaac, and this willingness was 
imputed to him, by this same God, for " righteous- 
ness." This could not have been, had not God 
regarded the act which Abraham was thus willing to 
perform as a righteous act. Had he regarded the act 
as a criminal one, then, of necessity, he would have 
regarded a willingness, on the part of Abraham or of 
any one else, as an indication of criminality, and not of 
"righteousness." Would time permit me to do so, I 
could show that, although they were not generally 
thus roasted as food for him, vast numbers of other 
human beings were, under this same God-given law, 
sacrificed, not as criminals, but as pure sacrifices, to 
this 3'our blood-besmeared God, and accepted by him. 
I will give two more instances, in both of which he 
himself demanded, as well as accepted the sacrifice. 

In the twenty-first chapter of 2 Samuel we learn 
that, for an offense committed some thirty years be- 
fore, by their grandfather, Saul — an offense for which 
Saul himself had never been punished or even re- 
proved — God required seven innocent children to be 
offered up unto himself as sacrifices to appease his 
wrath which had so strangely kindled up so many 
years after the commission of the alleged offense. 
Although five of these children were his own step- 
sons, David, who, for obvious reasons, was a man after 
God's own heart, had this horrible sacrifice duly 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 133 

offered. The ninth and the fourteenth verses say: 
-i And he [David] delivered them [the seven children 
in question] into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they 
hanged them in the hill before the Lord. . . . And 
after that God was entreated for the land." That is, 
his wrath being appeased by this sacrifice, he ceased 
to afflict the people of the land. 

It seems that, at the time in question, God, without 
any apparent reason for so doing, was afflicting the 
land with a grievous famine. When, however, he was 
interviewed in regard to this matter, he "answered, It 
is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew 
the Gibeonites." God also seems to have given his 
interviewer, David, to understand that whatever sacri- 
fices the Gibeonites might demand would be satisfactory 
to himself, and must be offered to himself before the 
famine would be made to cease. u Wherefore [that is, in 
consideration of what God had evidently just made 
known to him] David said unto the Gibeonites, What 
shall 1 do for you? and wherewith shall I make the 
atonement [which, in the interview just held, God had 
required to be made to himself, but which he had left 
to be determined by the Gibeonites] that [by turning 
away God's wrath, and thus causing him to remove 
the famine] ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? 
And the Gibeonites said unto him, . . . Let seven 
men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang 
them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the 
the Lord did choose. And the king said, I will give 
them" (2 Sam. xxi, 3-6). 

From the tenth verse we learn that the friends of 
these murdered children were not permitted to take 



134 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

their dead bodies down for burial, since the mother of 
two of them, to keep the birds and the beasts of prey 
from feeding upon the beloved forms of her poor chil- 
dren thus foully murdered, lay upon the cold, hard 
rock near them, and guarded them day and night, 
from the time of barley harvest, when they were mur- 
dered, until the rains of autumn began to fall upon 
them. Then nothing remained of them but their 
bones, and these had fallen asunder and lay scattered 
upon the ground just as they had fallen. And the 
God that you worship positively demanded that this 
horrible human sacrifice should be offered to himself 
before he would relieve the land from the long and 
fearful famine with which he was afflicting it. So 
s x>n, however, as this monstrous sacrifice was offered 
to him — so soon as he had enjoyed the spectacle so 
delightful to him of these poor children's death 
agonies — so soon as he had feasted his delighted eyes 
upon their swollen and blackened faces, their gaping 
mouths, and their protruding eye-balls — so soon as lie 
had feasted his nostrils upon the horrible stench of 
their decaying bodies, and had seen their flesh less 
bones fall asunder, then, and not till then, he "was 
entreated for the land," and caused the famine to 
cease. The other five children, being full orphans, 
had no fond mother to thus guard their decaying 
bodies. Their step-father, David, who should have 
been their protector, after having them thus foullv 
murdered, was in his gorgeous harem, reveling with 
his many wives and concubines, and thus doing "that 
which was right in the eyes of the Lord." and turning 
" not aside from anything that he commanded him," 



THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 135 

while the bodies of these his poor murdered step-chil- 
dren were thus dropping to pieces in the rain and the 
sun. 

Picture to yourselves the unutterable agony of that 
loving mother as she keeps her lone vigils, day and 
night, upon the cold, hard rock, for long weary months, 
while the bodies of her poor murdered children are 
slowly dropping to pieces before her very face. Or, 
rather, since the deed would be no more atrocious if 
perpetrated upon your own children, picture to your- 
selves your own sweet, innocent, and beloved little 
ones as thus foully murdered to please this God, and 
as tnua denied, the last sad rite of burial. Picture 
yourselves as thus guarding their dead bodies, day and 
night, for long weary months. Picture yourselves 
as gazing upon those bodies, day after day, while 
they slowly turn their livid, parted, but mute lips, 
their protruding, but sightless, eyes in all directions, 
as if to reproach the whole world for its crueltv, as the 
deadly rope, which still cuts into their tender little 
necks, winds and then unwinds itself in the sad wail- 
ing winds of coming autumn. Picture yourselves as 
gazing thus for long weary months upon those bodies 
— the bodies of those who had so recently been the 
lights of your own homes, the joys of your own lives 
— picture yourselves as gazing on those bodies, while 
every vestige of resemblance to their former selves 
slowly fades from their swollen and ghastly features, 
while the flesh slowly drops from their bones, and 
while their bones slowly fall asunder and drop upon 
the ground. Yes, picture to yourselves all these 
things, and then, if you feel like doing so, break forth, 



136 THE KEAL BLASPHEMERS. 

as you now often do, in loud hallelujahs to the unut. 
terably hideous monster that had it done — the monster 
that, according to your own teachings, is not a particle 
better now than lie was then. Do not, however, I beg 
of you, commit the fearful blasphemy of charging 
these soul-sickening atrocities against the true God — 
the God of nature ! And do not ask me — do not ask 
any free man — do not ask any one but a priest-blinded 
bigot, or a puling, conscienceless hypocrite to join you 
in orgies so unspeakably horrible as such shoutings, 
under such circumstances, would undeniably be. I 
would a thousand times rather shout the praises of the 
devil, who has never been charged, even by his most 
implacable enemies, with deeds half so atrocious. 

The last case, and the most important one, to which 
I shall call your attention, of a human sacrifice offered 
to your God and accepted by him, is that of Jesus, 
who is said to have been this same God's own son. In 
regard to this case I need say but little. My oppo- 
nents all admit that this was a pure sacrifice — that 
death was inflicted upon Jesus by men to appease 
God's wrath against themselves, and not as a punish- 
ment to him for any offenses of which he had been 
guilty. They all admit that he had never been guilty 
of any offenses at all for which he could have been 
punished. They all admit, too, that the body of 
Jesus — the only part of him that could and that did 
suffer death, and that could be and that was offered 
up to God as a "bleeding sacrifice" — was a human 
body. They all admit, further, that God required 
this human body with the life still in it to be offered 
up to himself as a i; bleeding sacrifice " — a ;l peace- 



THE HEAL BLASPHEMERS. 137 

offering" to appease his own wrath, not against the 

innocent victim, but against the men who offered the 
victim. They admit, also, that God himself concocted 
the whole bloody programme that was followed out 
by the murderers of Jesus in this horribly iniquitous 
affair — he himself so controlled events, so aided and 
abetted the murderers, who were simply instruments 
in his employ, that they should not and could not fail 
to sacrifice Jesus to him just as they did. They ad- 
mit, still further, that this was to God the most 
acceptable of all possible sacrifices; that he was so 
delighted with it that, in return for it, he let all man- 
kind — all of the murderers — off from eternal burnings 
in hell, to which he would otherwise certainly have 
doomed them because of a little fruit of his which 
Adam and Eve had eaten forty centuries before. In- 
deed, I believe that there is nothing connected with 
this monstrous affair that my opponents do not 
admit, and even shamelessly teach. I need not, there- 
fore, add anything more. But are they not guilty of 
fearful blasphemy in thus charging the infinite force 
that rules the universe with having had a son with a 
body like that of a man, and with having had that son 
brutally murdered before its eyes to appease its wrath 
which had been aroused a hundred generations before 
by the loss of a little fruit ? 

Of the many hundreds of other cases of blasphemy 
of which my opponents are guilty, I will notice only 
one more. This is the crowning blasphemy of charg- 
ing God with having literally begotten himself a sen 
upon a woman to whom he was not married, or, rather, 
with having begotten himself upon that woman ; 



138 THE REAL BLASPHEMERS. 

with having drawn himself in on every side from the 
infinite universe; wdth having compressed himself 
into a life-germ or spermatozoon so extremely small 
as to be utterly invisible to the naked eye; with hav- 
ing, in that form, crawled, like a parasitic animalcule, 
into the womb of an unmarried woman ; with having 
thus rendered her pregnant; with having passed, like 
any other child, through the processes of gestation and 
birth; with having been a little, helpless, toothless 
baby, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and squalling and 
writhing from colic and other infantile ailments; and 
that he did and became all of these things simply that 
he might have himself killed to appease his own 
unreasonable wrath. Just picture to yourselves rny 
pious opponents with a powerful microscope searching 
for their God — for the entire infinite power that rules 
the universe — in a single drop of liquid, just as you 
would search for trichinae in a small bit of diseased 
pork or sausage. When you have pictured all this to 
yourselves, then ask yourselves whether blasphemy 
could be carried to a more fearful extent than my 
opponents have thus carried it. And now, defying 
my opponents to deny a single charge that I have 
brought against them, I close. 

THE END. 



An Interesting Radical Story, 

THE DARWINS. 

BY 

SIRS. EJLMINA D. SLEMER. 

Aubor of "Studying the Bible," "Juha'a Wsy," and 
numerous Essays 

Thfs Romance Is written in Mi a. Sleoker's lively and in- 
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TWELVE TRACTS, 

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CHRISTIANITY AND INFIDELITY; 

A JOINT DISCUSSION BETWEEN 

REV. & H. HUMPHREY, Presbyterian Clergyman, 

OP NEW YORK, AKD 

D. M. BENNETT, Editor of The Truth Seeker. 

It was c inducted in the columns of The Truth Seeker, a let' 
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end thiiteeu I cplies by Bennett. 

The subject) discussed were as follows: 

Part I. — V7ie relative services of Christianity and Infi- 
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Part IL— The relative services of Christianity and 

Infidelity to Lu "ruing and Science. 

Part nL — Is there a stronger probability tiiat the. 
Bible is diviru than that Infidelity is true? 

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THE PRO AND CON 

SUPERNATURAL RELIGION; 



OR, 

4C 



An Answer to the Question : Have we a Super- 

naturally Revealed, Infallibly Inspired, and 

Miraculously Attested Religion in 

the World?" 



IN FOVR PARTS. 

PART L A brief history of the four great Religions claiming a 
Supernatural origin— Paganism, Judaism. Christianity and Moham- 
medanism. 

PART II. Review of the arguments in favor of Supernatural 
Religion. 

PART IIL Statement of the arguments against Supernatural 
Religion. 

PART IV. Particular remarks on the Supernatural origin of 
Christianity, and statement of the views of Rationalist* on Inspira- 
tion, Revelation and Religion. 

BY E. E. GUILD. 



TOOKTBSB WITH A. SKETCH OF THE UJB 07 THX AUTHOR 

There is no human religion outside of human nature. 

The different forms of religion contain the elements of one uni- 
versal religion, and are but different phases of the religion of 
humanity. 

Describe to me the God whom you worship, and I see in that 
description a reflex image of yourself. 



This is an able, argumentative, clear, and logical examination of 
the questions diccussed. It ^resante fairly the opposing arguments 
and giv.<w due consider^tior to every sida of the subject. 

Every Liberal can afford to own tb*s U*tle work, and it will \$ 
found a valuable acquisition to his library. 

100 pp. In pauer. 4ft eta. ; eloth, T* etc, Postpaid by mail 

y<sw York. 



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D, M. BENNETT, 
Liberal afd Scientific Ffblishinq Housa, 



BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, CIRCULARS, LETTER HEADS, 
BILL-HEADS, CARDS, ENVELOPES, AND 

JOB PRDTTINO OF ALL DESOEIPTIONS 

Neatly executed, at the lowest prices, and sent by Mail or Be 
firees to all parts of tbe country. 



HIE TRUTH SEEKER 

I* the largest, boldest, and cheapest Radical paper published In th« 
world Devoted to Science, Reform, Progress, and Human Happiness. 
It earnestly seeks the truth and does not fear to avow it when found. 
It has no confidence in the myths, theological fables, and superstitions 
which have cursed the world for thousands of years. It is not a friend 
to kingcraft, priestcraft, or tyranny of any kind. It advocates mentaC 
and physical freedom — especially freedom of thought, freedom of 
speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of the mails, sternly oppos- 
ing any infringement of these constitutional rights of the people. 

Price, including postage, $3.00 per year, or 25 cents per month. 
8ent on trial to new names for 50 cents for three months. Sixteen 
larg* pages, published weekly. Try it three months. 

RADICAL, PUBLICATIONS. 

The Truth Seeker I library. — .Ml large octavo volumes 
of a thousand pages each. Cloth, $3.00 ; leather and red edges, 
$4.00; morocco and gilt edges, $4.50. If the whole five are 
taken and sent by express, 25 per cent is deducted. The books are, 
The World's Sages, Thinkers, and Reformers, The Champions of the 
Church, Thomas Paine's Great Work3 (theological and political), Lord 
Amberley's Analysis of Religious Belief, and Supernatural Religion, 
by Prof. W. K. Clifford. The latter is $4.00, $5.00, and §5.50. 

Other Radical Work§.— Greg's Creed of Christendom, 
$1.50 ; Paine's Political and Theological "Works, published separ 
ately, $1.50 each ; Thirty Discussions, etc., 75 cents and $1 : Truth 
Seeker Tracts, five volumes of 500 page3 each, 60 cents and $1 — Ly 
the set, 50 cents and 75 ccnN ; Humphrey Bennett Discussion, $1 ; 
Bennett-Teed Discussion, 30 cents and 50 cents ; Interrogatories to 
Jehovah, 50 cents and 75 cents ; Burgess-Underwood Debate, 50 
cents and 80 cents; Undervood-Marples Debate, 35 cents and 60 
cents; Addresses and Proceedings at the Watkins Convention, 
$1.25 ; Truth Seeker Colle- tion, 75 cents ; Dr. J. Simm's System of 
Physiognomy, 8vo, $3, $4 , and $4,50 ; Heathens of the Heath, 
$1 and $1.50; The Dan /ins, 50 cents and 75 cents; Araberley'B 
Life of Jesus, 35 cents and 60 cents ; Career of Religious Ideas, 50 
cents and 75 cents ; Holy Bible Abridged, 30 cents and 50 cents ; 
Holy Cross Series, thirteen lumbers, anti-papal, 10 cents to 50 cents 
and 75 cents; Is&isace of Christianity on Civilization, 25 cents; 
Last Will and Testament of Jean Meslier, a Catholic priest, 25 cents : 
Chronicles of Simon Christianus, 25 cents ; Religion not History, 25 
cents; Resurrection of Jesus, 25 cents; Bell's Life of Jesus, 15 
cents; Christianity and Materialism, 15 cents; Anthony Comstock: 
his Career of Cruelty and Crime, 25 cents ; Sepher Toldoth Jeschu 
the Book of the Generation of Jesus, 20 cents ; The Jamieson-Ditzler 
Debate, 50 cents and 75 cents; What Liberalism offers in the 
£.!ace of Christianity, 10 cents; Truth Seeker Tracts, nearly two 
hundred varieties, from 1 cent to 10 cents each ; Truth Seeker Leaf- 
lets, thirty-two kinds, S cents por set, 25 cents per hundred, $2 p« r 
•thousand. Radical and miscellaneous books of all kinds furnishcdWs 
*rder. Send for a catalogue. Address. D. M. BEX^ETT, 
Mi Eighth gtrcet. Sew York. 



THE 



REAL BLASPHEMERS. 



BY 



JOHN R. KELSO, A. M. 



1). M, BENNETT, 
LIBERAL AND SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING IIOUSK 

OFFICE OF THE TRUTH SEEKER, 
NEW YORK. 



THE TRUTH SEEKER 

Is tho largest, boldest, and cheapest Radical paper published in the 
world. Devoted to Science, Reform, Progress, and Human Happiness. 
It earnestly seeks the truth and does not fear to avow it when found. 
It has no confidence in the myths, theological fables, and superstitions 
which have cursed the world for thousands of years. It is not a friend 
to kingcraft, priestcraft, or tyranny of any kind. It advocates mental 
and physical freedom — especially freedom of thought, freedom of 
speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of the mails, sternly oppos- 
ing any infringement of these constitutional rights of the people. 

Price, including postage, $3.00 per year, or 25 cents per month. 
Sent on trial to new names for 50 eents for three months. Sixteen 
large pages, published weekly. Try it three months. 

RADICAL PUBLICATIONS. 

The Trutk Seeker Library.— All large octavo volumes 
of a thousand pages each. Cloth, $3.00 ; leather and red edges, 
$4.00 ; morocco and gilt edges, $4.50. If the whole five are 
taken and sent by express, 25 per cent is deducted. The books are, 
The World's Sages, Thinkers, and Reformers, The Champions of the 
Church, Thomas Paine's G-reat Works (theological and political), Lo»-d 
Arnherley's Analysis of Religious Belief, and Supernatural Religion, 
bv Prof. W. K. Clifford. The latter is $4.00, $5.00, and $5.50. 
" Other Radical Work§. — Greg's Creed of Christendom, 
$1.50; Paine's Political and Theological Works, published separ- 
ately, $1.50 each ; Thirty Discussions, etc., 75 cents and $1 : Truth 
Seeicer Tracts, five volumes of 500 pages each, 60 cents and $1 — by 
the set, 50 cents and 75 cents ; Humphrey Bennett Discussion. $1 ; 
Bennett-Teed Discussion, 30 cents and 50 cents ; Interrogatories to 
Jehovah, 50 cents and 75 cents ; Burgess-Underwood Debute, 50 
cents and 80 cents; Underwood-Marples Debate, 35 cents and 4iO 
cents; Addresses and Proceedings at the Watkins Convention, 
$1 25 ; Truth Seeker Collection, 75 cents; Dr. J. Simm's System of 
Physiognomy, 8vo, $3, $4, and $4.50; Heathens of the Heath, 
$1 and $1.50 j The Darwins, 50 cents and 75 cents ; Araberley'e 
Life of Jesus, 35 cents and 60 cents ; Career of Religious Ideas, 50 
cents and 75 cents ; Holy Bible Abridged, 30 cents and 50 cents ; 
Holy Cross Series, thirteen numbers, anti-papal, 10 cents to 50 cents 
and 75 cents; Influence of Christianity on Civilization, 25 cents: 
Last Will and Testament of Jean Meslier, a Catholic priest, 25 conts ; 
Chronicles of Simon Christianus, 25 cents; Religion not History, 25 
cents ; Resurrection of Jesus, 25 cents ; Bell's Life of Jesus, i 5 
cents ; Christianity and Materialism, 15 cents ; Anthony Comstock : 
his Career of Cruelty and Crime, 25 cents: Sepher Toldoth Jesclni, 
the Book of* the Generation of Jesus, 20 cents; The Jamieson-Ditzler 
Debate, 5© cents and 75 cents; What Liberalism offers in the 
place of Christianity, 10 cents; Truth Seeker Tracts, nearly two 
hundred varieties, from 1 cent to 10 cents each ; Truth Seeker Leaf- 
lets, thirty-two kinds, 8 cents per set, 25 cents per hundred, $2 per 
thousand Radical and miscellaneous books of all kinds furnished to 
order. Send for a catalogue. Addresp. D. M. BENNETT, 
141 Eigntli street, New York. 



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